The HOC's Women in Sport Committee organised the event, with this the second time such a conference has taken place.

Szabó, who won an Olympic silver medal in the 100 metres backstroke at Barcelona 1992, urged women to be bold and try to take on leadership roles within sport.

She added that the Government would try to help facilitate this, with women still under-represented in such positions despite some improvement this last while.

Krisztián Kulcsár, the HOC President, also spoke and said he was passionate about seeing more women take an active role in sport, given statistics show organisations with a better gender balance perform at a higher standard.

He represents the Executive Board during meetings of the Women in Sport Committee.

Another member of the Committee, Dr Zsuzsanna Bukta, also spoke, having conducted research into women's participation in sport.

In Hungray, there are pnly 118,000 women among 426,000 licensed athletes, with the proportion of female athletes higher in the academy ranks than professional ones.

Just 16.6 per cent of National Olympic Committee leaders are women, according to her research.

Other speakers included handball coach Edina Szabó, Women in Sport Committee member Anett Fodor and Dr Andrea Gál.

Journalist Erzsébet Fazekas also gave a presentation on sporting ethics and the relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee.