Foreign News: Parting in Melbourne

The races to be run, the records to be broken, were not all that preoccupied the heavyhearted Hungarian Olympic team. Fresh from the ordeal of a revolution at home in which many had fought and for which victory seemed certain at the time of their leaving, the young athletes heard the bad news soon afterward during a brief stayover in Communist Czechoslovakia. “I am regaining control of their physical condition,” said Chief Coach Mihaly Igloi, when his boys and girls were settled at last in Melbourne, “but their minds are in Hungary.”

From the moment of their arrival in Australia, many of the athletes began inquiring about their chances of finding asylum in the West. It was not an easy decision to make. Few, if any, of the athletes were dedicated Communists, but an Olympic champion is an important man behind the Iron Curtain and is generally sure of a guaranteed income far beyond the average, and many special privileges. Defection would mean losing all of these sure advantages for a doubtful future in a strange country. And failure to return might mean reprisals against relatives.

Gradually the team became divided between the “goers” and the “stayers,” but there was no bitterness between the two groups. “I have to go back,” one of the goers told a weeping Hungarian girl from Queensland. “My parents are old, and I may be the only one able to give them bread.” Crew Coach Zoltan Torok, while still in Prague, had made up his mind to escape in Australia. Others sounded out Australians and U.S. team members, and were given assurances.

They had to be discreet. Minutes after making their last appearance, the entire Hungarian gymnast team was whisked away by friends to a safe and secret hiding place. Some of the championship water poloists were still damp from a workout in the pool—and still mad over their encounter with the Russians (see SPORT)—when they, too, were hurried off.

One day last week, as the moment for parting arrived, the athletes bound for home climbed aboard buses headed for the Melbourne airport. “It’s a terrible thing to see them go,” said a Melbourne Hungarian, while a girl athlete sobbed near by. Next day the 45 who had decided to stay in the West climbed into buses to board another plane, bound for freedom. Even for them, there was no joy. Hearts torn in two directions are not quick to gaiety, and at the airport even a champion wrestler was seen to be weeping unashamed.