Farkas Paneth

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.

Farkas Paneth
Personal information
Nationality Hungary  Romania
Born(1917-03-23)23 March 1917
Bucharest
Died23 June 2009(2009-06-23) (aged 92)
Medal record
Representing  Romania
World Table Tennis Championships
Silver medal – second place1936Men's Team

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
  1. "Cluj: Paneth Farkas, o poveste nemuritoare" (in Romanian). 24 June 2009. Retrieved May 29, 2014.
  2. "Paneth Farkas a murit la 92 de ani dupa o viata dedicata tenisului de masa" (in Romanian). Retrieved May 29, 2014.
  3. "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.
  4. "Farkas Paneth" (in Romanian). 28 September 2010. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
  5. "Memorial Paneth Farkas 05.10.2013 Cluj-Napoca Turneu A – EDITIA A IV A" (in Romanian). Retrieved May 29, 2014.
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