BUDAPEST, April 9, 2021 - Hungarian skeet shooter Diana Igaly, an Olympic champion in Athens in 2004 and a bronze medalist in Sydney, has died at age 56 from complications related to the coronavirus, the Hungarian Shooting Association stated on Friday.
"I saw her winning in Athens in person, and I will never forget that moment, as she was happily dancing around finishing her final round. She was the sweetest woman, a real champion, a true spirit, and an absolute icon," AIPS EC Member Zsuzsa Csisztu recalls some personal memories of Igaly's glorious victory in Athens, where she was awarded with a honorary citizenship later on.
Igaly, who also won four World Championships and six European Championships and amassed 32 international medals in total, was hospitalized on Tuesday due to severe symptoms of the coronavirus.
“She was a real legend of the sport, and her popularity was truly earned through her warm-hearted personality; that is how we remember her,” teammates and sport leaders said after the tragic news.
She was born into a shooting family. Her father was left off the Olympic shooting team in 1976 for political reasons when Hungary was under Communist rule. He subsequently became her coach and developed a shooting style that made Igaly one of the fastest in the field.
Igaly competed in international events teaming up with her mother - who took over her training after her father’s death in 1997 - and won her first major international title at age 25.
She participated in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, when women competed in a single field against men, then took home bronze from the first Olympics where men and women competed separately, the 2000 Sydney Games.
In Athens, Igaly missed just three of 100 shots, hitting all 25 of her targets in the semi-final and final rounds, en route to becoming the first Hungarian woman to win an Olympic shooting gold.
She was the leader of the shooting club that was established in memory of her father in 2007. She was a member of the Athletes’ Commission of the Hungarian Olympic Committee, and she earned a lifetime-achievement award from the Hungarian Shooting Federation in 2019. She worked as a Vice-President of the Federation as a leader of the skeet shooting unity. Her son, her family, and the whole nation are in mourning.
