Son of Hungary's top sprinter shines in America

In the 1990s, Eva Barati was a regular member of the Hungarian national team at world athletics competitions. She still holds the national record in the 60 meters. She will be watching this year's world championships in Budapest from afar, but she can watch athletes competing in the Hungarian capital who may become her son Joey McDonald’s rivals in a few years' time.

Barati Éva Joey McDonald 2019

This year Budapest will host the World Athletics Championships. Twenty-five years ago, when the European Athletics Championships was held in the Hungarian capital, Eva Barati ran in the 100 meters dash and  in the 4×100 relay at Nepstadion, the largest stadium in Hungary. Shortly after the European Championships, however, she moved to the United States, where she has been living ever since, watching her son Joey McDonald's career unfold.

Perhaps later Joey McDonald will officially wear the Hungarian jersey

“In 2000, Ildiko Strehli called me to go to Utah to get a quota for the bobsled event at the Winter Olympics. We managed to achieve it, but then I didn't become the pusher in the actual games in Salt Lake City. I, however met Joe, my future husband through the bobsleigh”, recalled Eva Barati.

Like Barati, Joe McDonald also switched from track and field to bobsleigh. He was talented in the long jump, high jump and triple jump, still holds the school record for the decathlon at Georgia Tech and came close to making the Olympics in both events.

Barati competed in the relay at the 1992 Summer Olympics, and her greatest success came at the 1996 European Athletics Indoor Championships. In Stockholm she qualified for the final in the 60 meters dash, finishing sixth. At the time, the national sports press called the result historic, and for good reason. In the last fifty years, Eva Barati has been the only women's European finalist in this event, and she still holds the national record (7.22 seconds).

The sporty couple have two children, Sofia and Joey.

"My daughter was also very talented and I thought she would break my record, but she has now given up sport and wants to be an actress, which I support 100 percent. Joey is a different story, he loves to train."
 

Now sixteen, he has been playing sport since he was five, but it was not clear that he would follow the family tradition and choose athletics. He initially tried team sports, and was considered very talented in American football and basketball.

"I started doing athletics two years ago. I have a competition record of 1.93 meters in the high jump, but I have already gone over two meters in training. I recently jumped 6.76 in the long jump, but I could have gone as far as 7 meters, I just stepped over the foul line. I'm in the top 15 in my age group in the US in both events, and I have big plans for both. I want to go to university with athletics and I want to compete in the Olympics," Joey McDonald, who is already 6'5", told us with the determination of a teenager.

Will he compete for the US or Hungary?

One can compete in both the long jump and the high jump even at the highest level, as JuVaughn Harrison proved at the last Olympics in Tokyo, where he represented the US in the finals of both events. Speaking of which, the big question is whether Joey will follow in his father's footsteps in the US or his mother's in Hungary. As he was born and raised in the United States, the former might be the more obvious choice, but the boy also has Hungarian citizenship. Let's not be hypocritical, the fact that the Hungarian national athletics team is easier to get into than the US team in most events may play a role in the decision.

Nevertheless, the family will still watch this year's World Cup in Budapest on television. Although Eva Barati had planned to visit her home country during the World Cup, the family's plans turned out to be different.

"I will be watching the action and cheering on the Hungarian team.From here in America." I'm happy that we have good sprinters again, and I'm sure that they will break my Hungarian record soon. If that happens, they will deserve it 100 percent," Eva Barati told Magyar Nemzet.

Cover photo: Eva Barati and her son Joey visited Hungary a few years ago, but the boy was not yet playing athletics (Source: family collection)