ELECTED MEMBERS
   
Last NameSportCountryYear Inducted
FERENC MEZO (GRUNFELD)

Inducted: 1986
Country: Hungary
Born: March 13, 1885 in Poloskefo, Zala, Hungary
Died: November 21, 1961

The first official historian of the Olympic Games, Dr. Ferenc Mezo-
Grunfeld was awarded a gold medal for Literature in the 1928 Paris Olympics Art Competitions for his book The Olympic Games in Antiquity.

Mezo-Grunfeld became enthralled by the Olympic Games as a child and at an early age decided to devote his life to them. He wrote more than 70 works on the Olympics, his first published in 1911.

The historian collected documents and relics related to sports history, and by the early 1920s his library was one of the most extensive in the world. Upon his death in 1961, the Mezo Collection
was deposited in the Museum for Sport and Physical Education in Budapest. It includes more than 5,500 books, innumerable original documents, photographs, medals, coins, countless relics, prizes, and charters.

Mezo was a founding co-president of the Hungarian Olympic Society and was the Hungarian member of the International
Olympic Committee from 1948 until his death in 1961.

 
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