Andrzej Laszczak

	Andrzej Laszczak
	; Andrzej Laszczak at the EM 2010
nation	Poland
birthday	May 5th 1976
place of birth	Szczyrk
size	174 cm
Weight	65 kg
job	Stonemason
Career
discipline	Two-seater, single-seater
society	LKS Jastrząb Szczyrk
status	active
Medal table
Natural Track Luge World Championships
European Natural Track Luge Championships
	Placements in the Natural Track Luge World Cup
World Cup victories	10
Overall World Cup ES	?
Overall World Cup DS	1. ( 2001/2002 )
	last change: March 5, 2012

Andrzej Laszczak (born May 5, 1976 in Szczyrk ) is a Polish natural track luge . He also starts in the single-seater, but is particularly successful in the doubles-seater. After starting with Marcin Pawlus for several years , he has formed a two-seater pair with Damian Waniczek since 1999 . They won the overall World Cup in the 2001/2002 season , won ten World Cup races so far , won the silver medal at the 2010 European Championships and another five bronze medals at World and European Championships . Andrzej Laszczak has been Polish championship two-seater 14 times , twelve times with Damian Waniczek.

Career

Andrzej Laszczak has been taking part in natural tobogganing competitions since 1991 and celebrated his first success in 1993 when he and Jerzy Sidoruk became Polish champions in doubles. In the World Cup , Laszczak starts in both the doubles and singles. While he is one of the national leaders in the single-seater and achieved several podium places at the Polish Championships, in the World Cup in this discipline he mostly only achieved placements between rank 20 and 30, more rarely among the best 20, and in the overall World Cup usually also placements between rank 20 and 30. In the two-seater, however, Andrzej Laszczak is one of the world's best. In the second half of the 1990s he and Marcin Pawlus achieved their first good results in the World Cup. The duo did not make it onto the podium in any race, but achieved sixth place overall in the 1995/1996 and 1997/1998 seasons and fifth overall in the two-seater World Cup in the 1996/1997 season . At the 1996 World Cup and the 1997 European Championship , the duo Pawlus / Laszczak achieved seventh place in the doubles, while Andrzej Laszczak only came in 30th and 33rd in the single-seater. In the 1998/1999 season Andrzej Laszczak did not contest World Cup races, but started at the European Championships in 1999 in his home town of Szczyrk , where he reached 16th place in the single-seater and fourth place with Pawlus in the doubles. In addition, Marcin Pawlus and Andrzej Laszczak became Polish champions in the two-seater in 1999.

Since the 1999/2000 season , Andrzej Laszczak has been competing in the World Cup together with Damian Waniczek, who is five years his junior . The two had already taken part in the 1996 European Junior Championships in Szczyrk, where they finished fifth in the doubles. In the single-seater, Andrzej Laszczak was 15th. After Andrzej Laszczak and Damian Waniczek were once among the top five in the first three World Cup races of the 1999/2000 season, they achieved their first major success at the World Championships at the end of January 2000 in Olang . There they won the bronze medal behind the Italians Armin and David Mair and the Austrians Reinhard Beer and Herbert Kögl and thus the first medal for Poland at the world championships that have been held since 1979. Three weeks later the first podium followed in the World Cup when they reached third place on February 20, 2000 in Železniki . In the World Cup, this was the second podium for Poland, after the doubles Krzysztof Niewiadomski and Michał Andrzejewski had also achieved third place six years earlier . In the overall World Cup, Laszczak / Waniczek finished fourth in their first season together, just ahead of Russians Denis Alimow and Roman Molwistow . In addition, they became Polish doubles champions in 2000 and have been able to defend this title every year so far, making them Polish doubles champions twelve times by 2011 and Andrzej Laszczak already won the national championship 14 times with the two previous titles.

The 2000/2001 season was slightly worse than the previous year . There were no podium places, their best World Cup result was fourth place in Lüsen and they dropped to sixth place in the overall standings. At the 2001 World Championships in Stein an der Enns , they finished fourth, just under a second behind third-placed Peter Lechner and Peter Braunegger . In the team competition, which was held for the first time, the Polish team, to which Magdalena Hula also belonged alongside Andrzej Lasczak and Damian Waniczek , came fourth and - after the failure of the Austria I team - last place. Already in the next winter things went uphill again and Laszczak / Waniczek celebrated their first victory and at the same time the first ever World Cup victory for Poland in the first World Cup race of the 2001/2002 season in Olang. This was followed by a second place in the second race in Olang and a third place in the parallel competition in Triesenberg , only in Umhausen they did not come on the podium as fifth. With two more victories in the last two World Cup races in Hüttau and Železniki , the Poles secured the overall World Cup victory for the first and so far only time with a lead of 55 points over the Austrians Beer / Kögl. At the 2002 European Championship in Frantschach-Sankt Gertraud , a week after the World Cup final , Laszczak / Waniczek won the bronze medal in a close decision, 17 hundredths of a second behind the winners Wolfgang and Andreas Schopf and just six hundredths of a second behind the second-placed Reinhard Beer and Herbert Kögl. In the single-seater, Andrzej Laszczak did not start in the second run after finishing 31st in the first run.

In the World Cup, the next season began as successfully as the last ended. Laszczak / Waniczek won the first two races in Völs and Umhausen, came second in Moscow and were once again at the top of the podium in the fourth race of the season in Hüttau, giving them a 60-point lead over the Russians Pawel Porschnew and Pawel Porschnew in the interim standings Ivan Lazarev had. But in the last two races the Poles only came fourth, while the Russians won once and came second once and thus prevented the Poles from winning again overall World Cup; Laszczak / Waniczek finished second overall, ten points behind. At the 2003 World Cup in Železniki, they missed the medal ranks by 27 hundredths of a second and finished fourth, just like two years ago. In the 2003/2004 season , the Poles had little to do with the decision in the overall World Cup right from the start. In the first four races they only finished on the podium once, finishing second in Grande Prairie . They won the fifth World Cup race, the parallel competition in Triesenberg , but in the end they did not get past fourth place in the overall World Cup. At the 2004 European Championships in Hüttau, they only finished seventh. The next season did not start as desired with two fifth places in Longiarü and Unterammergau . After that, Laszczak / Waniczek finished all four World Cup races on the podium, won twice in Oberperfuss and Latzfons and thus achieved second place in the overall World Cup, 60 points behind Beer / Kögl and ten points ahead of Porschnew / Lasarew. After two fourth places at the last two World Championships, Laszczak / Waniczek won the bronze medal again at the 2005 World Championships in Latsch - as they had five years before - and were only two hundredths of a second behind the second-placed Armin Mair and Johannes Hofer . In the team competition, the Polish team, consisting of Andrzej Laszczak, Damian Waniczek and Karolina Waniczek , finished fourth, just one point behind Team Italy I. Laszczak / Waniczek achieved the best time in the two-seater. After Andrzej Laszczak had skipped a few World Cup races in the single-seater in the last few years and only competed once in the single-seater at World and European Championships in the past six years, he has been regularly at the start again without his partner since this winter. As in previous years, he mostly achieved placements between 20th and 30th place in this and the following seasons and achieved the same results in the overall World Cup. At the 2005 World Cup, he was placed 27th in the midfield.

The victory in the opening race of the 2005/2006 season in Longiarü was the last of the two Poles in the World Cup so far. In the second half of the season they made it onto the podium twice, third in Grande Prairie and second in Oberperfuss, but fell back to fourth place in the overall World Cup. The 2006/2007 season was unusually bad . For the first time in six years, they did not finish in the top three in any World Cup race and, like six years earlier, only finished sixth in the overall World Cup. At the 2006 European Championships in Umhausen, Laszczak / Waniczek achieved their worst career result with ninth place; at the 2007 World Cup in Grande Prairie they were able to improve again to fourth place, and they also took fifth place in the team competition together with Kinga Gawlas and Adam Jędrzejko . In the singles, Andrzej Laszczak came in 33rd at the 2006 European Championships and 26th at the 2007 World Cup. In the 2007/2008 season , the Laszczak / Waniczek doubles again achieved two second places in Moos in Passeier and Latsch. With two more top 5 results, they finished third in the overall World Cup behind the Italians Patrick Pigneter and Florian Clara , who won all six races of the season, and the Russians Porschnew / Lasarew. At the 2008 European Championships in Olang they only came in seventh, while Andrzej Laszczak was 25th in the single-seater.

Andrzej Laszczaks and Damian Waniczek's best World Cup results in the 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 seasons were two third places each, and in both years they came fourth with two top 5 results in the overall World Cup. At the 2009 World Championships in Moos in Passeier, they won the bronze medal in doubles for the third time after 2000 and 2005. In addition, together with Natalia Waniczek and Adam Jędrzejko, they were fifth in the team competition and Andrzej Laszczak took 29th place in the single-seater. After their overall World Cup victory, the Poles achieved their greatest success so far at the 2010 European Championships in St. Sebastian . After they had already achieved third place four times and fourth place in international championships, Andrzej Laszczak and Damian Waniczek won the European Championship 2010 with the second fastest running time and 1.52 seconds behind the Italians Patrick Pigneter and Florian Clara and a lead of 29 hundredths of a second over the Russians Alexander Jegorow and Pjotr Popow the silver medal in the two-seater. In addition, they were sixth in the team competition with Natalia Waniczek and Adam Jędrzejko; Andrzej Laszczak finished 26th in the single-seater.

At the beginning of the 2010/2011 season , Andrzej Laszczak did not take part in the two World Cup races in Nowouralsk . In the single-seater he then achieved similar World Cup results as in previous years with placements around 25th place. Laszczak / Waniczek started the season in the doubles in mid-January with only a ninth place in the World Cup race in Casies . At the 2011 World Championships in Umhausen two weeks later they were more successful and won the bronze medal in the doubles for the fourth time. In the team competition, they finished eighth among nine teams together with the single-seaters Wioletta Ryś and Adam Jędrzejko; Laszczak was 27th in the single-seater. In the World Cup, the duo Laszczak / Waniczek remained without a podium for the first time since the 2000/2001 season. In the overall World Cup, they fell back to eighth place. In the 2011/2012 World Cup season they did not achieve a podium position either, but with four top 5 results Laszczak / Waniczek were able to improve to fifth in the overall two-seater World Cup. As in the previous year, Andrzej Laszczak usually placed 25th in the single-seater, making him 25th again in the overall World Cup. At the 2012 European Championships in Nowouralsk, Laszczak finished 25th in the single-seater, while the duo Laszczak / Waniczek took fifth place in the double-seater and eighth in the team competition in a mixed team with the two single-seater Adam Jędrzejko and the Slovenian Petra Dragičevič .

successes

Andrzej Laszczak (left) and Damian Waniczek during the double-seater award ceremony of the 2010 European Championship

(if not stated otherwise, two-seater with Damian Waniczek)

World championships

Oberperfuss 1996 : 30th single-seater, 7th double-seater (with Marcin Pawlus)
Olang 2000 : 3rd two-seater
Stein an der Enns 2001 : 4th doubles, 4th team
Železniki 2003 : 4th doubles
Latsch 2005 : 27th singles, 3rd doubles, 4th team
Grande Prairie 2007 : 26th singles, 4th doubles, 5th team
Moos in Passeier 2009 : 29th singles, 3rd doubles, 6th team
Umhausen 2011 : 27th singles, 3rd doubles, 8th team

European championships

Moos in Passeier 1997 : 33rd single-seater, 7th double-seater (with Marcin Pawlus)
Szczyrk 1999 : 16th single-seater, 4th double-seater (with Marcin Pawlus)
Frantschach 2002 : 3rd two-seater
Hüttau 2004 : 7th two-seater
Umhausen 2006 : 33rd singles, 9th doubles
Olang 2008 : 25th single-seater, 7th double-seater
St. Sebastian 2010 : 26th singles, 2nd doubles, 6th team
Nowouralsk 2012 : 25th singles, 5th doubles, 8th team

Junior European Championships

Szczyrk 1996 : 15th singles, 5th doubles

World cup

Overall World Cup victory in doubles in the 2001/2002 season

2nd place overall in the two-seater World Cup in the seasons 2002/2003 and 2004/2005

3rd place overall in the two-seater World Cup in the 2007/2008 season

25 podium places, including 10 wins:

date	place	country	discipline
December 14, 2001	Olang	Italy	Two-seater
January 20, 2002	Huettau	Austria	Two-seater
January 27, 2002	Železniki	Slovenia	Two-seater
December 22, 2002	Völs	Italy	Two-seater
January 12, 2003	Umhausen	Austria	Two-seater
January 26, 2003	Huettau	Austria	Two-seater
February 14, 2004	Triesenberg	Liechtenstein	Two-seater
January 14, 2005	Oberperfuss	Austria	Two-seater
January 23, 2005	Latzfons	Italy	Two-seater
December 11, 2005	Longiarü	Italy	Two-seater

Polish championships

14-time Polish champion in doubles (1993 and 1999 to 2011)

Web links

Commons : Andrzej Laszczak - collection of images, videos and audio files

Andrzej Laszczak in the database of the International Luge Federation

personal data
SURNAME	Laszczak, Andrzej
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Polish natural track toboggan runner
DATE OF BIRTH	May 5th 1976
PLACE OF BIRTH	Szczyrk , Poland