ILCA 6 world champion Mária Érdi becomes first sailor to win Hungarian Female Athlete of the Year 2023

A two-time Olympian, Mária followed her bronze medal at the European Championships in March with gold at the Allianz World Sailing Championships in August, forever writing her name into the history books of Hungarian sport. 

Mária was competing in Argentina and unable to accept the prestigious award in person but took the opportunity to tell the country she will keep improving and aims to be the best in the world in her class for many years. Benedik Fluck, chairman of Mvm Sports Club, received the award on her behalf from Olympic gold medalist Javier Sotomayor.  

“I’m very sorry that I can’t be there in person, it’s a great honour to be the first world champion and the first sailor from Hungary to receive the award. My goal is to continue my development in 2024, this award will motivate myself and the Hungarian sport of sailing,” said the 25-year-old athlete in her video announcement. 

Mária won Hungary’s first gold medal of the 2023 Allianz Sailing World Championships in The Hague, with a third placed finish in the final race enough to seal gold. This achievement was a dream come true for Érdi who had enjoyed success in senior fleets as a young sailor but suffered an injury in the early stages of her career. 

Mária was part of World Sailing’s Youth Emerging Nations Program (ENP) in Langkawi, Malaysia, in 2015, and qualified for the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. 

Going into the Sailing World Championships in August 2023 she was ranked 11th in the world and currently sits seventh. She will be hoping to represent Hungary for a third time at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games this summer. 

The inaugural SSL Gold Cup World champions, ‘the Shamans’ of SSL Team Hungary were also shortlisted, in the Team of the Year category but narrowly missed out to the Hungarian men’s national football team.  

Very few of the team were professional sailors, with captain Zsombor Berecz saying “Our team is special. Very few of them are professional sailors, they have all sorts of jobs, and we came together with no sponsor. We did the entire programme with our money, and I think this is also our strength.  

“Everybody was happy to invest, and we deserve it. Maybe we are not individually the best sailors in this whole competition, but as a team we are the best, and I’m super proud of that. If you believe that you can win, and you can make everybody believe that you can win, then that’s it. It sounds simple but it’s all in the team.” 

First held in 1958 and organised by the Association of Hungarian Sports Journalists, the Hungarian Sportspeople of the Year awards ceremony is the most prestigious event in the national sporting calendar. 

This year’s winners also included men’s national football team captain Dominik Szoboszlai who won Male Athlete of the Year and men’s football manager Marco Rossi who won Coach of the Year. 

Watch the award presentation here (in Hungarian). 

Images courtesy of M4Sport and Star Sailors League.