Tibor Puha

"I won the first match, automatically a medal. And I boxed the second match and it was an Italian, he was already well known, better pancratist. A balanced match, I was supposed to win. I lost 3: 2. But the hell broke loose in that hall in Varna, people started to throw things, whistle, because they unrightfully gave the other one. Those people cause messed there, as far as I know, then I escaped to the locker room and cried, of course, I cried because it was an undeserved loss. I have never seen so many roses in my life as then- people threw gigantic roses, the organises gave me around 50. I cried because I didn't know what to do. You shall contest the decision, they said. But protest is pointless, you have to pay 50 marks or dollars for it, and you still wouldn't win. And then when we were returning to the hotel together with the Hungarians, the referee came to me and said Tibor, please, don't be angry with me, but you couldn't have given it to you since your (Czechoslovakia) also didn't give it to us. The frictions were strong."

"Yes, I was an Olympian, also in 1980, I was prepared for the Olympics. And I didn't get there and that's why I got stuck, I was pissed- I still wanted to go to the Olympics. Maybe that also helped me, so I started training even more. That... in four years I'll try again, it was supposed to be in Los Angeles, in America. In the meantime, I got married in 1981, that stimulated me even more, women are wonderful, I guess. And since then, I was winning the national championships. Then I went for European, world, Europe, I was preparing for the Olympics. And unfortunately, two months before the Olympics, we had been told that we could not go there because the security could not be provided there for us, that was the official version. So we didn't go. We were all called to Prague and explained to us, that we cannot go, but instead of real Olympics we'll have "socialist Olympics".