Sabre maestro Endre Kabos won four Olympic medals for Hungary. He captured the Individual gold medal at the 1936 Olympics Games, and Team Sabre gold medals at the 1932 and 1936 Games. He also won an Olympic bronze medal in Individual Sabre in 1932.

Kabos gained national prominence in 1928 when he won the Individual Sabre gold medal at the Slovakian Championships. In 1930, he took the Individual silver medal at the European Championships. Between 1931 and 1935, Kabos won numerous European Individual and Team Sabre honors: Individual gold medals in 1933 and 1934; and Team gold medals in 1931, 1933, 1934 and 1935. (In 1937, the European Championships were renamed ‘World Championships’.)

Kabos was more economically challenged than most of his top level Hungarian fencing compatriots. Following the Hungarian team’s triumph at the 1934 Europeans, Kabos retired from competition to open a grocery store. However, through the good graces of a patron, he was able to resume his fencing career and lead Hungary to its 1935 Euro Team title and a pair of 1936 Olympic gold medals.

There are various are accounts of Kabos’ fate following Germany’s World War II occupation of Hungary, but each ends with the same outcome. Kabos was sent to a forced labor camp where he was interred for at least three months. With the aid of a compassionate guard, he escaped and joined the Hungarian underground. According to one report, the Olympic Sabre champion lost his life defending the Margit Bridge that separates the cities of Buda and Pest. Another account claims he was killed when a munitions truck he was driving exploded as he attempted to cross the bridge, plunging the truck into the Danube River.