Meet Karoly Takacs, the illustrious disabled Olympic shooter whose life’s work served as the inspiration for Balki’s Ghoomer and know his death reason and story
Saiyami Kher and Abhishek Bachchan will both appear in R Balki’s Ghoomer. In this sports drama, Saiyami plays a player with a disability and Abhishek plays a cricket coach.
Who is shooter Karoly Takacs on whose real story Ghoomer movie is based, death reason, biography, age, disability and records
Karoly Takacs of the Hungarian Army, was top pistol shooter in the world for men's 25 metre rapid fire pistol. He had won many national and international championship in shooting. He was preparing for Olympics 1940 and was expected to win Gold for his nation.
But one day in 1938… pic.twitter.com/boMIPftepu
— Manan Bhatt 🇮🇳 (@mananbhattnavy) June 16, 2023
The film will be made available to watch in theatres on August 18. Unknown to many, the movie Ghoomer was loosely based on the biography of Olympic medalist athlete Károly Takács.
Who was Károly Takács?
Born and raised in Budapest, Károly Takács enlisted in the Hungarian Army as a young man. He had become a well-known marksman by 1936 as a result of his skill with the handgun. Takács suffered a serious injury in 1938 while taking part in his military training when a grenade explosion went wrong.
His dominant right hand was rendered useless as a result of the injury, but he continued to pursue shooting despite this setback. He worked hard to become an expert left-handed shooter. The story of Abhishek Bachchan’s movie “Ghoomer” is very similar to his extraordinary journey.
He was born on January 21, 1910 and died on January 5, 1976a aged 65, in Budapest, Hungary, the place where he was born.
The Olympic Games that were slated to take place in 1940 and 1944 had to be cancelled due to the Second World War. At the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, Takács astonished everyone by defeating Carlos Enrique Dáz Sáenz Valiente of Argentina, the favourite and the reigning world champion, at the age of 38 to win the gold medal. In the same competition, Takács won a second gold medal at the Helsinki Summer Olympics in 1952.
Takács participated in the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 as well, but he came in eighth place and failed to snag a third medal. Despite being best renowned for his rapid fire pistol abilities, Takács won a bronze medal in the 25-meter center-fire pistol event at the 1958 ISSF World Shooting Championships. In Hungary, he also took first place in 35 national shooting contests.
After a successful shooting career, Takács went towards coaching. He trained Szilárd Kun, a Hungarian who took home the silver medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics. He left the service in the rank of lieutenant colonel.
He died 5th of January, 1976, at the age of 65, in Budapest, Hungary due to a heart attack.