Otylia Jędrzejczak

Otylia Jędrzejczak
Jędrzejczak (2014)
Personal information
Surname:	Otylia Jędrzejczak
Nation:	Poland
Swimming style (s) :	Freestyle, butterfly
Birthday:	December 13, 1983
Place of birth:	Ruda Śląska
Size:	1.89 m
Medal table

Otylia Jędrzejczak ( listen ^{? / I} ) (born December 13, 1983 in Ruda Śląska , Poland ) is a Polish swimmer and Olympic champion in swimming.

Career

Jędrzejczak studied sport at the University of Warsaw and started for the university sports club ASZ AWF Warszawa. Her trainer was Paweł Słominski.

In 1999 she first attracted international attention at the Junior European Championships when she became the Junior European Champion in the 100 and 200 m butterfly. In the same year she was also able to win the bronze medal at the European Swimming Championships in her special discipline 200 m butterfly .

She took part in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and finished fifth in the 200 m butterfly.

On August 4th, 2002 at the European Swimming Championships in Berlin , she became European Champion over the 200 m butterfly in a world record time of 2: 05.78 minutes. She was three hundredths of a second faster than the previous world record holder Susie O'Neill from Australia .

At the 2003 World Championships in Barcelona she was able to shine again on her favorite 200 m butterfly course and win her first world championship title.

At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens on August 15, 2004, she won two silver medals in the 100 m butterfly and the 400 m freestyle within an hour. On August 18, 2004, she celebrated the greatest success of her career: She became Olympic champion in the 200 m butterfly. It was the first Olympic gold medal in swimming for Poland.

Honors

Her successes brought Otylia Jędrzejczak great popularity in her home country. She is considered to be the female counterpart to the ski jumper Adam Małysz, who is also very respected in Poland . Jędrzejczak was voted Sportswoman of the Year in Poland in 2004 and 2005 .

The British magazine Time selected her in the list of heroes of Europe in 2004 because she auctioned her gold medal won in Athens for the benefit of children with leukemia . At the children's request, she received the international award as Cavalier of the Order of Smiles .

Accident and comeback

On October 1, 2005, Jędrzejczak was seriously injured in a car accident north of Warsaw, and her 19-year-old brother died. The accident was caused by the significantly excessive speed of the car that Otylia Jędrzejczak was driving. She was sentenced to 9 months in prison, 30 hours of social work per month, and a year-long driving ban.

On March 25, 2006 Jędrzejczak in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski for the first time since her accident again in a competition. She won the 200 m butterfly with a time of 2: 15.73 minutes.

At the European Short Course Championships in Helsinki in December 2006 she won the gold medal and set a European record in the 200 m butterfly (2: 04.94 minutes). At the European Short Course Championships in Debrecen in 2007 she also won a gold medal and set a new European record with 2: 03.53 minutes.

At the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 she was fourth in the 200 m butterfly race and ninth in the 400 m freestyle. After the Games she paused, but took part again in the Olympic Games in London in 2012 , where she finished 16th in her favorite discipline of 200 m butterfly.

On June 5, 2014, she announced the end of her sporting career.

Records

European records (2)
200 m butterfly	02: 05.61 min	July 28, 2005	Montreal
200 m butterfly (short course)	02: 03.53 min	December 13, 2007	Debrecen
(As of July 30, 2008)

Web links

Commons : Otylia Jędrzejczak  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Otylia Jędrzejczak in the Swimrankings.net database (English)
• Otylia Jędrzejczak in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ten dzień odmienił życie Otylii. March 18, 2016, accessed December 30, 2018 .