Alfred Hajos- First Olympic Gold Medallist in Swimming 1896 – Post Card of Hungary

Alfred Hajos- Guttmann (01 Feb 1878 – 12 Nov 1955) was born in Budapest, Hungary. He was a Hungarian Swimmer and Architect. He was named Alfred Guttmann on birth. He lost his father when he was 13 years old. His father drowned in the Danube and died. He took Hajos (meaning Sailor in Hungarian ) after that. In 1896, he was an architect student and initially did not get permission to miss classes and participate in the Olympics. However managed to convince his dean and entered for all three Swimming events at Olympics i,e. 100 M Freestyle, 500 M Freestyle and 1200 M Freestyle. He won the 100 m freestyle -the First Swimming event- and dropped out of 500 m freestyle due to weather and water conditions. The Swimming events were held in Bay of Zea in the Mediterranean as no Pool was built. He won the 1200 metres freestyle also. He thus became the First modern Olympics Swimming Gold Medallist & First Hungarian Olympics Swimming Gold Medallist.

He returned to 1924 Paris Olympics as an art Competition participant and won a Silver Medal with his partner Dezso Lauber in architect. He thus became only one of two athletes to win medals in Olympics Sports and art competitions.

He was awarded the Olympic Diploma of Merit by IOC in 1953. He was also made a member of International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame He built the Alfred Hajos Swimming Complex on Margaret Island on the Danube in Budapest where a large number of International Swimming events have been held.

A Post Card was issued by Hungary to honour this great Hungarian Swimmer & Sportsman.