Background
When her father announced to coach Petre Dumitrescu he had to withdraw his son because he could not leave his daughter at home without supervision, Dumitrescu suggested he bring the girl as well.
When her father announced to coach Petre Dumitrescu he had to withdraw his son because he could not leave his daughter at home without supervision, Dumitrescu suggested he bring the girl as well.
She is of Hungarian-ethnic background. Lazăr-Szabo began fencing when she was 7 years old at CS Tractorul in her hometown Brașov. Her elder brother already fenced there.
Her first coaches were Bogdan Pincovici, then Vlad Șerban.
The same year, she took part in her first international competition at the Minsk Junior World Cup. She ranked in the Top 16 at her first Junior World Championships in Leningrad.
A year later, in 1985, she reached the final of the Junior World Championships in Arnhem and came away with a silver medal. She made her Olympic début at Seoul 1988, but she was defeated in the second round in the individual event and in the first round in the team event.
Her husband and her moved to Germany in 1993.
He became a fencing coach at Turn- und Sportverein Bayer Dormagen, which became her club She took the gold medal both in the individual and team events at the 1994 World Championships in Atlanta. Lazăr-Szabo retired from competition in 2004, after 21 years spent in the national team, after missing the qualification for the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Lazăr-Szabo was inducted in 2013 in the Hall of Fame of the International Fencing Federation.