Deaf
Jews In Sports |
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Olympic Gold Medallet Fencer
Ildiko Uslaki Rejto
The deaf in the sport of fencing? Yes, even though It is not a recognized sport by the American Athletic Association of the Deaf or played in the World Games for the Deaf. Yet there is a number of deaf fencers that have excelled in this sport
One of them is Ildiko Rejto.
And while chances are high that no one has overheard of her, it is very easily claimed
that she is the world's greatest deaf fencer. And she is a Jew, and a resident of Hungary.
She is an unknown to the sports public only because fencing is not exactly a popular sport
in the USA. But among followers in the small world of fencing she is an icon.
How good was Rejto? Well, she participated in five Olympics - 1960 in Rome; 1964 in Tokyo; 1968 in Mexico City; 1972 in Munich and 1976 in Montreal. Most Olympians compete in just one or two Olympics, but Rejto competed in FIVE, which in itself, is an amazing feat. We are talking about a 16-year span; meaning she took first competed in 1960 as a young lady and closed out in 1976 as a mature woman, winding down her fencing career, but doing much honor to her nation that values culture.
Did she win any medals? You betcha! Here's a listing of her harvest:
1960 - team silver in foil
1964 - individual gold in foil
1968 - team silver; individual bronze
1972 - team silver
1976 - team bronze
The one gold medal she won, in 1964, is the highlight of her sparkling fencing career. She has never failed to get at least a medal in each of the Olympics she took part in. Again, most Olympians fail to win medals, but Rejto was simply perfect - five Olympics, five medal harvests.
1964 Olympics: Hungarian Women receive
first prize in team fencing.
Rejto is in back.
How were her fencing coaches able to communicate with her? By sign language? No. By home-made gestures? No. They communicated with her by instructions written down on a piece of paper for her while she sat down to rest between her fencing sessions.
As a tragic sidebar, she competed in the 1972 Olympics at Munich, where several Israeli Olympians were gunned down in an act of terrorism. Thank goodness she wasn't targeted by the terrorists.
Rejto is not the only deaf person to take part in fencing. There has been a number of them participating in this sport over the years. She, however, is not only a Jew but the only deaf person to compete in the highest echelons of the fencing hierarchy.
Fencing followers desiring to look up her accomplishments in Olympic records book or fencing history books may find Rejto's name spelled as Rojto. Rest assured that Rejto and Rojto are both the same woman, thanks to phonetical difficulties of the Hungarian language, reputed to be one of the world's most difficult languages to master.