Péter Pál Kiss (born 6 May 2003) is a Hungarian Para canoeist. He represented Hungary at the 2020 and 2024 Summer Paralympics. At 18 years old he was youngest-ever paracanoe Paralympic champion.
Early life Kiss originally lived in a shanty town in Baranya County. In 2011, Kiss was paralyzed after being diagnosed with Guillain–Barré syndrome. When Kiss was eight, he thought it was a fever that was originally thought as just being the flu but as a result he lost feeling in his legs. In order to get treatment, he moved to a school in Budapest. As part of his rehabilitation, he started swimming despite a fear of water after a near drowning experience when he was younger and overcame that fear.
Whilst undergoing rehabilitation after losing the use of his legs, his swimming coach noticed Kiss demonstrating talent in a canoe and suggested he take it up. He started training on the River Danube and won gold and bronze medals at Hungary's national paracanoe championships. When he was 16, he won gold at the 2019 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships.
Career At the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan, Kiss won gold in the 200 metre KL1 sprint. This made him the first teenager to win gold in the KL1 class. Prior to the 2024 Summer Paralympics in Paris, France, Kiss suffered a pectoral muscle injury in training that kept him out of the 2024 European and World Championships and only qualified for the Paralympics after winning a domestic head to head competition. Following a repeat gold medal win at the Paralympics, Kiss was selected as Hungary's co-flagbearer for the closing ceremony. Later in the year, Kiss announced that he was looking to enter in the VL2 category in addition to KL1. In 2025, he announced that he had a new coach and trained in the bay at Újpest on the Danube as a part of the Budapesti Honvéd SE canoeing team. On 11 January 2024, he was named the Hungarian parasportsman of the year for 2023.
In August 2025, he competed at the 2025 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships and won a gold medal in the KL1 event. The next month he competed at the 2025 ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships and won a silver medal in the KL1 event with a time of 32:37.15. This marked the first time paracanoe was competed in marathon distances at the ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships.
References
External links
Kiss Péter Pál at