The county athletes and teams of the year received their awards – with gallery and video

Gábor Faldum, the Male Athlete of the Year, was justifiably absent, as he is currently preparing for new competitions abroad. On the other hand, two more award winners arrived from Bajá, Andrea Gaál received the Female Athlete of the Year award, which means a lot to her.

– I was very happy about the opportunity, especially since I don’t belong to the youth, and I’m not even an elite athlete anymore. When I was still there, I made it to the national team as a handball player, I was preparing for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but I injured my spine and my career ended. After that, I wanted to complete myself in some form in sports, so I found fitness, followed by aerobics. I have done a lot of training, I have worked with both adults and children, but a true athlete always misses competing. I wanted to find something in which I would find joy, which is how the Spartan Race and the Fighter’s Run off-road obstacle races came about, to which I owe this award. I started among the amateurs, and after getting better and better results, I was already among the competitors in the field of 49-year-olds. I also had a podium finish, but I still have goals. My age group is strong, but I want to achieve the best possible results, to finish in the top five in the Hungarian competitions – said Andrea Gaál.

The Bajai NKK basketball players won the Women’s Team of the Year award, something they are also very proud of at the club. The association achieves good results both at the adult and youth level, and they want to maintain this level in the future, Gábor Nagypál, the president of the club, gave a status report on this.

– We are talking about an association that has been proving itself for 20 years, and we have achieved many results. Ours is one of the most successful clubs in the county, I can safely say that. In national basketball life, our recruitment workshop is considered among the ten best, we have given and are currently giving a lot of talented players to the sport, which we are proud of. Seven times we were the team of the year in some age group, the work and results of the past 20 years predestined us to win such an honorable award, many people know us, so many people voted for us. Basically, our main profile is supply, we deal with 160 children in Baja and its surroundings. We work with nine coaches, we train dozens of age group national teams, which we are very proud of. I trust that this unbroken development will continue, that we will find more and more talents for the sport. Unfortunately, our financial possibilities do not allow us to be in Group A, as before, but professionally, in my opinion, we would belong there. We do not give up hope, this is also included in our short-term and long-term goals, if the conditions for this are created. It is a serious challenge for us that our best players are often lured away by elite academies, and the majority of our graduating players continue their university studies in other cities. In fact, every summer we build a new adult team in this way, whose average age does not even reach 18 years. Several national finals await us, and the senior team is involved in the playoffs, where we can achieve what we set as our goal. However, the main thing for us is to make many people fall in love with this wonderful sport, so that the good name of Baja and the club can be spread throughout the country – said Gábor Nagypál.

Kecskemét TE is the only double player in the field, the purple and whites also won the men’s team of the year award last year. Since then, the team won a silver medal in the NB I., was able to step onto the international stage, and this year it can almost certainly be stated that it will confidently maintain its membership in the top division, which was the basic goal of the club management before the season.