1952 Olympic Games. Karoly Takacs, right-handed shooter and left-handed Olympic champion

One of the characters of Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, nicknamed himself “the man with the golden gun”: a hitman as precise as he was deadly. For once, reality has outdone fiction with “the man with the golden hand”. His name? Karoly Takacs. Special feature? Double Olympic champion in rapid-fire pistol shooting with his bad hand, his left. Logical for this right-handed man who has become one-armed.

To understand the resilience of this extraordinary Hungarian, head to London in 1948 for the 14th Games of the modern era. The 25-meter rapid-fire pistol event was promised to the Argentinian world champion, Carlos Enrique Diaz Saenz Valiente, who wondered what this 38-year-old amputee was doing there. “I’m here to learn,” replied Takacs, naturally withdrawn. One of his bullets accidentally went off before the starting gun, causing him to narrowly escape disqualification. Protests, shouts, insults… the athlete remained unperturbed: for months, he had been training by asking friends to shout around him. Finally authorized to shoot, he broke the world record by more than ten points. To the journalists who came to interview him at the foot of the podium, Takacs handed a victory declaration written the night before.

Unfailing tenacity

The Hungarian lived only for this special day. Born in Budapest in 1910, he joined the Hungarian army in 1926. His shooting skills quickly became known. He aimed for the Berlin Olympics in 1936, organized by the Third Reich, allied with Hungary. Of modest origin, Karoly Takacs was then only a sergeant. However, only officers could compete. Faced with this injustice, the rule was changed in 1937, offering him the prospect of the Tokyo Games in 1940. Alas, in 1938, during an exercise, a defective grenade tore off his right hand. Hospitalized for a month, he ruminated and found a solution. Shoot with his left. Authorized to stay in the army, he trained alone and reappeared in the spring of 1939 at the national championship. The participants thought he was there as a spectator. “Let’s see what I can do with my left hand,” he told a reporter. To everyone’s amazement, he won the title. “I scored 523 points in this competition, while my best result as a right-hander was only 521,” he joked in a Hungarian newspaper in 1940. Better still, in July, he helped Hungary win the World Team Championship in Lucerne, Switzerland.

A good omen for the Games… But the Second World War broke out. Crippled, he could not go and fight the Soviet army with the Germans and remained in Hungary as an instructor. Captured in Germany during the debacle, cleared at the Hungarian surrender, he immediately resumed training to be at the Olympic meeting. In London, in 1948, he became the third known physically disabled athlete to participate in the Games. He would even allow himself the luxury of retaining his title in 1952, at the Helsinki Games, a first in his discipline. Forever, “the man with the golden hand”.