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Károly Takács: Switching Hands
Károly Takács of Hungary overcame great adversity to win back-to-back Olympic titles in rapid-fire pistol shooting. The European champion and a member of the Hungarian world-championship team in 1938, Takács was ready to make his mark in the 1940 Olympics, which his team was expected to dominate. War and a tragic accident in 1938, however, put Takács’s Olympic dreams on hold. At age 28, Takács, a sergeant in the Hungarian army, was severely injured while practicing maneuvers with his squad—a grenade with a defective pin blew up before Takács could throw it. His right hand, which was his shooting hand, ...(100 of 318 words)