Jacek Wszoła

Jacek Wszoła (2007)

Jacek Roman Wszoła (born December 30, 1956 in Warsaw ) is a former Polish high jumper and Olympic champion .

At the age of 17, Wszoła took part in the 1974 European Championships in Rome. With 2.19 meters he jumped in fifth place as high as the third-placed Vladimír Malý from the Czechoslovakia.

In the run-up to the 1976 Olympic Games in Montréal, the American world record holder Dwight Stones , who had increased the world record to 2.31 m in June, was the clear favorite. But Stones was eliminated in the Olympic final on July 31 with 2.21 m and received only bronze, second was the Canadian Greg Joy with 2.23 m, and Wszoła jumped as the only one over 2.25 m and won gold.

At the European Athletics Indoor Championships in 1977 in San Sebastián, the flop jumper Wszoła won with 2.25 m before the straddle jumper Rolf Beilschmidt from the GDR with 2.22 m. A year later at the European Indoor Championships in Milan in 1978 , the new star Wladimir Jaschtschenko from the Soviet Union won with 2.35 m ahead of Rolf Beilschmidt. Wszoła was seventh with 2.21 m. At the European Championships in Prague , Jaschtschenko won with 2.30 meters, Wszoła was sixth with 2.21 m.

At the Indoor European Championships in 1980 in Sindelfingen, the young Dietmar Mögenburg from Germany won with 2.31 m ahead of Wszoła and the Romanian Adrian Proteasa with 2.29 m each. On May 25, 1980, Wszoła jumped at the International High Jump Meeting in Eberstadt with a world record of 2.35 m in front of Mögenburg, which came to 2.29 m. The next day Mögenburg also jumped 2.35 m in Rehlingen . After Mögenburg and the other West German Springer as the Americans precisely because of the Olympic boycott at the Olympic Games in Moscow were missing, the world record holder Wszola was considered a favorite. With 2.31 m he only won the silver medal behind Gerd Wessig from the GDR, who even took the world record from him with 2.36 m .

Wszoła was still jumping in the 1980s. His last international final position was 11th place with 2.20 meters at the European Indoor Championships in 1987 in Liévin. But he could no longer reach the great heights of 1980.

Wszoła won a total of eleven Polish championship titles: 1974 to 1980, 1982, 1984, 1985 and 1988.

Jacek Wszoła is 1.94 m tall and weighed 79 kg when he was active.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ JACEK ROMAN WSZOŁA ('56) - Internetowy Monitor Sądowy i Gospodarczy. Retrieved March 26, 2019 . 

literature

• Manfred Holzhausen: world records and world record holder. High jump / long jump. Grevenbroich 1999
• Ekkehard zur Megede: The Modern Olympic Century 1896-1996 Track and Field Athletics. Berlin 1999 (published by the German Society for Athletics Documentation eV )