REFLECTIONS: Ping-Pong Imperialists

• Share

"I am overjoyed that our glorious Magyar players have conquered the American reactionary agents and jumping jacks of dollar imperialism who fill those of us of the Hungarian People's Republic with disgust," Hungarian Radio Commentator Gyoergy Szepesi prattled into the microphone. The only ringside commentator at the world-champion table tennis tournament in Stockholm, ardent, 25-year-old Communist Szepesi was not going to pass up his chance to get in a plug for the new order.

The broadcast boomeranged back to Swedish Radio Chief Henrik Hahr. Hahr cautioned Szepesi that "sport is one thing and politics another," cabled Budapest to instruct their reporter to restrain himself to sportsmanlike commentaries. Budapest cabled a curt "reporter instructed."

Certainly Gyoergy was unbowed. "I don't retract one single word," he stormed. "I'd do it again any time . . . The American players ... are a bunch of dollar-imperialist puppets, reactionaries and betting braggarts." Shamefaced Hungarian players, who did not share the fire-eating Communist's opinions, privately apologized to the U.S. team. After the Hungarian team won the Swaythling Cup, even Gyoergy grudgingly relented: "It's a pity I said all this. It chips off some of the glory of the Magyar victory."

Stockholm police cut short the Hungarian victory celebration to chip off a little more glory. They nabbed husky, blonde Gizi Farkas, three times world champion Ping-Pongstress. As with her other compatriots, Gizi's excursion this side of the Iron Curtain was an occasion for stocking up on nylons, watches, lighters—all the paraphernalia of the bourgeois West. She was so awe-struck at the sight of Swedish abundance that she had bagged a handsome wool jacket without paying for it. "I've never seen such a beautiful thing before," she admitted. "I just couldn't resist it."

Gizi, previously hailed by Szepesi for her "moral superiority over her fellow contestants," was ignominiously packed off by plane. Instead of playing in Goteborg and London this week, Gizi will be out of temptation's way, back in the glorious Hungarian People's Republic.