Irena Szewińska

Irena Szewińska
Irena Szewińska (2007)
nation	Poland
birthday	May 24, 1946
place of birth	Leningrad ,  Soviet Union
size	176 cm
Weight	60 kg
date of death	June 29, 2018
Place of death	Warsaw
Career
discipline	Sprint , long jump
society	Polonia Warsaw
Medal table
Olympic games 3 × 2 × 2 × European championships 5 × 1 × 4 ×
Olympic games gold Tokyo 1964 4 × 100 m silver Tokyo 1964 200 m silver Tokyo 1964 Long jump gold Mexico City 1968 200 m bronze Mexico City 1968 100 m bronze Munich 1972 200 m gold Montreal 1976 400 m  European championships gold Budapest 1966 200 m gold Budapest 1966 Long jump gold Budapest 1966 4 × 100 m silver Budapest 1966 100 m bronze Helsinki 1971 200 m gold Rome 1974 100 m gold Rome 1974 200 m bronze Rome 1974 4 × 100 m bronze Prague 1978 400 m bronze Prague 1978 4 × 400 m

Irena Szewińska , née Kirszenstein (born May 24, 1946 in Leningrad , Soviet Union ; died June 29, 2018 in Warsaw ) was a Polish athlete and Olympic champion . She was extremely popular in her home country even after her active career as an athlete ended.

Athletic career

Irena Kirszenstein 1964

In 1946 she was born to Jewish parents in a refugee camp in Leningrad. At the age of 14 she discovered athletics for herself and soon excelled in the sprint and long jump . As an 18-year-old, she won the gold medal over 4 x 100 meters with the Polish relay team at the Tokyo Olympics ; in the individual competitions she also won the silver medals in the long jump and in the 200-meter run . At the European Championships in 1966 , she won three gold medals (200 meters, long jump, 4 x 100 meter relay) and came second in the 100 meters.

She married her coach Janusz Szewiński in 1967 and started the following year at the Olympic Games in Mexico City under her new name Szewińska. She won the gold medal over 200 meters with a world record time of 22.5 s and the bronze medal over 100 meters .

After a baby break in 1970, she won bronze medals at the 1971 European Championships in Helsinki and at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. At the European Championships in 1974 , two more European titles over 100 meters and 200 meters and a bronze medal with the 4-by-100-meter relay followed.

In the course of the 1970s she switched to the 400-meter course and remained undefeated from 1973 to 1978. At the 1976 Olympic Games in Montréal, she won over this distance with a world record time of 49.28 s and a lead of over a second.

At the European Championships in 1978 she was over 400 meters and third with the 4 x 400 meter relay . She ended her career after the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, where she was injured.

In 1966 and 1974 she was named Europe's Sportswoman of the Year . In 2012, Szewińska was inducted into the newly established IAAF Hall of Fame .

Activity as a sports official

From 1997 to 2009 she headed the Polish Athletics Association PZLA. Irena Szewińska has been a member of the IOC since 1998 and took a. presented the award ceremony in 2004 at the Olympic Games in Athens over 100 meters butterfly when the Polish Otylia Jędrzejczak received her first silver medal. In 2005 she was elected to the IAAF Council in the run-up to the 2005 World Athletics Championships in Helsinki .

family

She was married to her coach Janusz Szewiński since 1967. The marriage resulted in two sons, including the volleyball player and later Senator Andrzej.

World records

100 m

• July 9, 1965 in 11.1 s
• June 14, 1968 in 11.1 s

200 m

• September 7, 1965 in 22.7 s
• June 18, 1968 in 22.5 s
• July 13, 1974 in 22.21 s (only undercut by Marita Koch in 1978 )

400 m

• July 22, 1974 in 49.9 s
• July 22, 1976 in 49.75 s
• August 29, 1976 in 49.28 s

Web links

• Irena Szewińska in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Fast and steady , Radiodienst Polska
• Short biography on the IOC website
• Irena Szewinska on sporting-heroes.net
• Portrait on Jews In Sports Online
• Biography in the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
• Irena Szewińska in the database of Olympedia.org (English)

Footnotes

1. ^ IAAF: Legends: Irena Szewinska ( Memento from August 20, 2001 in the Internet Archive )
2. ^ ESPN : Past Olympics Athletes: Irena Szewinska-Kirszenstein . 2008