AIPS: Anna Szilágyi won the top prize for young photographers

The third award ceremony was the first one to be held virtually. In 2019, the first event was held in Lausanne and the second one took place in Budapest in 2020. This solemn, but virtual award ceremony occurred on Monday night in Vigevano, the famous riding hall of the Renaissance castle in the small town of northern Italy. The nominees and award presenters were remotely connected in the live broadcast.

The young Hungarian photojournalist Anna Szilágyi entered the competition with the photo of Tamás Märcz and his players celebrating after the victorious penalty shoot-out at the finals of the European Water Polo Championships in Budapest last January. In addition to Anna Szilágyi in the category, the photographer of a Chinese image agency, Zhenbin Zhong, and the employee of the The Guardian, Filipe Amorim of Portugal, were also in the top three.

The Jury found Anna Szilágyi to be the best of the best. The winner was announced by Sattam Al-Sahli, AIPS Asia President.

“I'm very grateful to the men's water polo team for achieving such success last year that it allowed me to take a picture in this theme. I'm also grateful to FradiMédia, given the many members of the national team from Ferencváros, that I was able to attend the European Championships and report on the event. I don't need to emphasize that I didn't expect this recognition at all. when I submitted the application, I hoped to get somewhere, but I didn't even dream of winning,” the Hungarian Sports Journalists' Association quoted Anna Szilágyi after the award ceremony on their official website.

György Szöllősi,Nemzeti Sport's editor-in-chief and President of the Hungarian Sports Journalists' Association (MSÚSZ) congratulated the first Hungarian winner of AIPS Media Prize on the phone within minutes following the announcement.

“This is an indeed a historic moment for us as a Hungarian journalist or photographer has never earned the world association's Media Award. Anna Szilágyi, who was awarded the MSÚSZ Award of Excellence last year for her picture of synchronized swimmers, really deserves all the recognition. It's a special pleasure for us to be able to make a great shot of a Hungarian team at a world event organized in Hungary as a Hungarian competitor,” said the president of MSÚSZ.

Anna Szilágyi, as confirmed by Gianni Merlo, Italian president of AIPS, speaking to the young winners, will receive a scholarship for a major world event to “experience on the field.”

The winner along with György Szöllősi will be Mokka's guests on Tuesday morning on TV2.

A total of 1,781 entries were received in the 11 different categories, and the bests were selected by the Jury of prestigious international professionals based on what the AIPS Executive Committee, which also includes Zsuzsa Csisztu, VP of MSÚSZ, had shortlisted. Only the winners were announced in the categories designed for young reporters, while the first three were named in the basic categories.

In the eight basic categories (sport action, photography portfolio, column, color piece, audio, athlete profile, documentary, and short feature), the prize money for the winner is US$8,000, the runner-up receives $3,000 and the third gets $2,000.

Anna Szilágyi's success was also reported on the official Twitter channel of Ferencváros since the photojournalist works mainly for FradiMédia through FotóSarok.

Further winners
Best sport action:Andrezj Grygiel (Poland) – Crash – PPA
Best photography portfolio: Adam Pretty (Australia) – Climbings Olympics debut – Getty Images
Best documentary:Louis Myles (Great Britain) – Stop the Tour – BT Sport
Best athlete profile:Pierre Deprez (Belgium) – Piotr Van Montagu: An archer (not) like the others – RTBF
Best short feature:Hassen Guedioura (France) – Ines Ibbu's open letter to Dominic Thiem – MAGTEAM
Best color piece:Bernt Jakob Oksnes (Norway) – Mom is dying – Dagbladet
Best column:Dina Asher-Smith (Great Britain) – Think racism hasn't affected me? It's there almost every day – The Telegraph
Best audio:Tracey Holmes (Australia) – The ticket - Black Lives Matter and athletes' right to protest– ABC

Young Reporters
Best broacasting: Clarisse Sih (Cameroon) – Karate Tai Sabaki, more than meets the eyes – CRTV
Best writing:Ari Schneider (United States) – Two climbers. Best friends. Only one ticket to the Olympics. – The New York Times

THE AWARD CEREMONY

Translated by Vanda Orosz