| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
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| Nationality | 
Hungary 
Romania | ||||||||||||||
| Born | 23 March 1917 Bucharest | ||||||||||||||
| Died | 23 June 2009 (aged 92) | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Farkas Paneth (23 March 1917, Cluj, Austro-Hungary – 23 June 2009, Cluj, Romania) was a Jewish-Romanian table tennis player and coach who played for Romania.
He started playing on a tailoring table using firewood instead of a net. [1]
As a player, he won two Romanian Cup titles, nine national champion titles in the doubles and mixed competitions, and several runner-up prizes in the individual competition. [2]
In 1936, when he was playing Alojzy Ehrlich, a Pole, at the 1936 World Table Tennis Championships in Prague, one of their exchanges lasted for two hours and twelve minutes. The Romanian team ( Viktor Vladone, Marin Vasile-Goldberger and Farkas Paneth) won a silver medal in that competition.
He coached both local teams in Cluj and the Romanian national teams, many of his disciples ( Angelica Rozeanu, Maria Alexandru, Șerban Doboși, Radu Negulescu, Dorin Giurgiuca, etc.) winning 16 world gold medals and 32 European titles (including youth competitions). [2] While he coached CSM Cluj, his team won the European Club Cup of Champions five times.
A member of a rabbinical family, he managed to escape twice on the way to concentration camps. [3] He was the subject of a documentary movie by Steven Spielberg about the life of the Jews during World War II. [1] [2]
He was an avid stamp collector. [4]
Awards and honors
- "Cultural Merit" Medal for Sport, Second Class (1936)
- Honored Coach (1951)
- "ITTF Merit Award" (1993)
- National Medal for Merit, Third Class (2000)
- Honorary Citizen of Cluj
- A table tennis tournament in Romania is named in his honor [5]
Books
- Paleta și planeta (with Gheorghe I. Bodea), 1997 (first edition), 2003 (second edition)
See also
References
- ^ a b "Cluj: Paneth Farkas, o poveste nemuritoare" (in Romanian). 24 June 2009. Retrieved May 29, 2014.
- ^ a b c "Paneth Farkas a murit la 92 de ani dupa o viata dedicata tenisului de masa" (in Romanian). Retrieved May 29, 2014.
- ^ "Tenisul de masa l-a salvat de la moarte" (in Romanian). jurnalul.ro. June 24, 2004. Archived from the original on May 31, 2014. Retrieved May 30, 2014.
- ^ "Farkas Paneth" (in Romanian). 28 September 2010. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
- ^ "Memorial Paneth Farkas 05.10.2013 Cluj-Napoca Turneu A – EDITIA A IV A" (in Romanian). Retrieved May 29, 2014.
External links
- Obituary ITTF
- Interview (in Romanian)
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