Pál Szekeres, Deputy Minister of State for Sport at the Ministry of Human Resources, welcomed participants at an open day in Debrecen for wheelchair users. At the event two silver medallist Paralympic fencers displayed their skills in wheelchair fencing.
‘If somebody has a physical disability it does not mean that they cannot take part in a variety of sports,’ said Mr. Szekeres at the Békessy Béla Fencing Centre in Debrecen. As patron of the event, the Deputy Minister of State introduced Zsuzsa Krajnyák, world champion and eighteen-time European champion in épée, who won two silver medals and one bronze at the London Paralympics, and nineteen-time European foil champion Gyöngyi Dani, who won two silver medals in London.
Mr. Szekeres, who is the only person to have won medals in both the Olympics and Paralympics, said that the wheelchair competitors are ‘successful, balanced people, who live full lives.’ The Deputy Minister of State said that he has no doubt that there will be a fencer from Debrecen at the next Paralympics.
(Office of the Human Rights Working Group, EMMI)
