László Szalma

László Szalma (born 27 October 1957) is a retired Hungarian long jumper. He won six medals at the European Indoor Championships—two gold, three silver and one bronze—and finished fourth at the 1980 Olympic Games and the 1983 World Championships. His career best jump of 8.30 metres, achieved in July 1985 in Budapest, is the current Hungarian record.

Career He was born in Nagymaros. He won a Hungarian title for the first time in 1977, taking the national indoor championship, and first made his mark in international athletics at the 1977 European Indoor Championships. With a jump of 7.78 metres he won the bronze medal. At the 1978 European Indoor Championships the next year he won the gold medal with a jump of 7.83 metres. In 1980 he competed at the Olympic Games in Moscow, finishing fourth. Then, despite jumping even better at the 1981 European Indoor Championships, Szalma only finished fourth with 7.90 metres, eleven centimetres behind the winner Rolf Bernhard. In the summer he won the gold medal at the 1981 Summer Universiade. At the 1982 European Indoor Championships, there was an eleven centimetre gap between first and seventh place; Szalma finished in between at a fifth place. At the 1982 European Championships he dropped slightly to an eleventh place.

In 1983 Szalma competed at the inaugural World Championships. He leapt 7.97 metres to progress from the qualifying round, and finished fourth in the final with 8.12 metres. In the summer he jumped a career best of 8.30 metres, in July in Budapest. and also the best result in Europe that year. At the end of the season he finished third at the 1985 World Cup, tying with but losing to Robert Emmiyan at 8.09 metres.

At the 1986 European Indoor Championships Szalma won his second silver medal in a row, but this time with a jump of 8.24 metres, which was a career best on the indoor track. and sixth at the 1987 World Indoor Championships. In the summer he competed at the 1988 Olympic Games, finishing sixth both in the qualifying round and in the final. and the 1989 World Indoor Championships. At his third Olympic participation, two years later, he did not manage to reach the final of the long jump competition.

He became the Hungarian long jump champion in 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985 and 1988, rivalling with Béla Bakosi, Gyula Pálóczi, Zsolt Szabó and Csaba Almási. He also became Hungarian indoor champion in the years 1977 through 1990, except for one year, as Gyula Pálóczi won in 1985. Szalma stands tall, and during his active career he weighed .

International competitions 1Representing Europe