BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A Hungarian magazine reported Wednesday that more than 80 percent of President Pal Schmitt's 1992 doctoral thesis about the modern Olympic Games was copied from a similar work published in 1987 by a Bulgarian sports official.
Schmitt’s office said it "categorically rejects" the allegations made by the weekly magazine HGV.
Schmitt’s thesis is a "supplementary work" and its summa cum laude — with highest praise— grading "speaks for itself," Schmitt’s office said in a statement released to state news wire MTI.
Schmitt, a former Olympic fencing champion, has been a member of the International Olympic Committee since 1983. He has been accused by the magazine of plagiarizing fellow IOC member Nikolay Georgiev, who died in 2005.
Schmitt knew Georgiev personally. The most important sources of both men’s dissertations included the minutes of meetings of the IOC and its executive committee, as well as documents from the Olympics Games analyzed in the two works, the president’s office said.
HVG said Schmitt listed Georgiev’s work in the bibliography of his thesis, but there were no footnotes or other attributions crediting specific parts of the work to the Bulgarian author. HVG estimated that 180 of the thesis’ 215 pages were copied from Georgiev.
Schmitt, also a former vice president of the ruling Fidesz party led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, was elected by Parliament in 2010 for a five-year term.
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the former German defense minister, resigned last March after allegations he had copied large parts of his doctoral thesis without attribution. Guttenberg vehemently denied cheating but admitted making "grave mistakes" with the thesis.
