Sándor Végh

Six-time Hungarian champion and European silver medal winner Sándor Végh, sponsored by MOL, received the silver medal at the Hot Air Balloon National Championship held in Debrecen between September 30 and October 4, 2008, which placed him second on the national podium after his Hungarian champion gold medal received in 2000.

Sándor Végh, who has been flying with hot air balloons for nearly thirty years, has been the most successful active Hungarian hot air balloon sportsman. He has spent nearly five thousand hours in the air flying in his hot air balloon.

Sándor Végh was the very first in the world to reach a zero centimeter result at an official international hot air balloon cup, and his throw of 19 cm in the World Cup held in Japan in 2006 was the best result in the whole field during the entire contest.  

At the 8^th Hot Air Balloon International Championship, the sportsman, who has been the main organizer of this event since 2001, missed reaching first place by only the smallest of distances.

"In addition to performing my duties as organizer, I also learned from the mistakes I made in the past years, which lead me to concentrate more on the competition. And that helped achieve this result," said Sándor Végh. "We had four take offs and had to perform thirteen tasks, during which I collected a handicap of only 166 points, and so I was able to stay in the ring for the champion’s gold medal anyway after so many years. I was also concerned with the award gala because of what it means in terms of international comparison, and I reached third place in this category. I’m happy to say that we are over with the contest and performed excellently from a professional point of view. This can be considered as a preliminary test run of the hot air balloon world cup to be organized in Debrecen, Hungary in 2010. I’m so proud that we can expect as many as 120-130 hot air balloons, which is the highest number so far in a World Cup where I’ve been the main organizer!"