The Hungarian classic broke a new path for genius - and this is more than sports history.
The biggest lesson for me from the wonderful Kristóf Milák's performance in Paris is that he proved that there is not only one way to the top. It has paper, that is, medals about it: the exceptional, the geniuses of the era, can step out of the schemes that provide results for average talents with superhuman work and crystallized methods. These
the schemes are excellent, effective, but not for everyone.
This time I can write in a declarative way: Kristóf Milák created his own myth, which is not of sports history, but of historical importance. He covered the country in euphoria by questioning everything that decades of sports science and experience had put before the talents of the following generations, for example: if you want to be successful, you have to do this and that.
It turns out there isn't just one way.
Kristóf Milák is the Olympic champion of the 100-meter butterfly!
It doesn't matter why Milák took a different path, although I think it is deeply rooted in Milák's personality, which is at least as special as his talent.
What matters is not what the genius does, what he thinks, but that he exists and acts.
What matters is that he's cool, that he's Hungarian, that he's our son, that he considers himself our son and that it comes from that mysterious something that we all have in common. It condenses the essence into a single moment - or even minute - and unites the nation, which no politician has managed to do in the last hundred years. Thank him and let's not waste this moment.
I believe the experts that the 200 butterfly was spent in Kristóf's missed months, with less work compared to the maximum: based on his talent, he would have "deserved" both golds. What he put on the table needs no explanation. Tokyo: 1 gold 1 silver. Paris: 1 gold, 1 silver. Yes, based on its awesome capabilities, it could be even more, but maybe that's the price of the new road. It seems that everything can't be perfect. Maybe he wouldn't have been able to take it otherwise.
The either-or logic does not stand the test of reality here either.
- You represent everything for your country, a country, you can't help but disappear into the gecko.
- The genius above all.
Anyone who perceives these as contradictory statements seems to be mistaken. Each statement is true because we agree with each statement somewhere inside, we just feel we have to take a stand. You don't have to. Milák proved that there is no point in censoring viewpoints on moral grounds. These are just two statements, nothing more. He became an Olympic champion. Twice.
I believe that the goal can be expanded after this within the swimming sport as a whole: to find and attract the Miláks of the future.
Could we have more athletes who don't line up, but bring the Olympic gold "with their hands in their pockets"?
Who performs best under the stake? Yes, work cannot be spared. Apparently he was also broken, in his own way. If we take it that way, not only the work, but also this laxity cannot be "spared" for us.
How many frozen Hungarian classics, Hungarian performances crumbling due to chance and stakes, we see again and again at the Olympics,
in which there was more work and humility than most, but lacked the spunk, the fire, the explosion?
Don't get me wrong. We need this, we need that too. This is not a change, but an addition. We moved out of somewhere and headed somewhere. Change is good. He has already brought a gold and a silver.
Featured image: Gold medalist Kristóf Milák after announcing the results of the men's 100-meter butterfly at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics at the Paris La Défense Arena in Nanterre, near Paris, on August 3, 2024.
MTI/Tamás Kovács
