Gábor Kucsera

Budapest. 27 August 1982
He tried himself in several sports at an early age, then after some time spent swimming and football, he found the real one: kayak. He started paddling in 1990 and was highly successful at youth and junior events.

He gained his first victory as an adult in 2004, paddling for Budapest Honvéd at the European Championship in Poznan, winning the gold medal. He was one of the expectants for the Olympics that year, but the silver medal was only less than enough among the very strong Hungarian competitors. This setback gave him new strength and his works came to fruition in the following years. Strenuous work and perseverance brought the long sought success in 2005 when Gábor won the world championship in Zagreb.

He won the gold medal in the K2 1000m and the bronze medal in the K2 500 event with Zoltán Kammerer at the 2006 World Championship in Szeged, Hungary.

In 2007, the newly established kayak-canoe department of Kőbánya SC signed him where he got all the support to prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Gábor and his teammate Zoltán Kammerer just barely missed the podium in the K2 1000m and 500m events of the Olympics. They placed fourth in both events, scoring.

It was some comfort in 2008-2009 that Zoltán Kammerer and Gábor made it to the podium with the 500m event, producing a silver medal in 2009 in Dartmouth, Canada, and Gábor won the Paddler of the Year title as the most successful athlete in the men's department.

In 2011, he gained the quota for the Hungarian national team as member of the K4 representing FTC.