Zenon Jaskuła

Zenon Jaskuła after the 9th stage of the 40th International Peace Tour in 1987

Zenon Jaskuła (born June 4, 1962 in   Śrem ) is a former Polish cyclist . As the only Pole until 2016, he achieved a podium in the Tour de France .

childhood

Jaskuła spent his childhood in the countryside in Wielkopolska (Greater Poland), where his parents ran a farm. Jaskuła quickly caught cycling fever. His older brother Roman competed in local races, and not without success. Zenon Jaskuła accompanied his brother to many smaller cycling events. In the course of time he went to the start himself and drew attention to himself with a very good drive and fighting spirit. Bronisław Krawczyk , coach at the Piast Śrem cycling club , took care of the young Jaskuła.

Career

Beginnings

Jaskuła soon represented the WLKS Wielkopolska Poznań association (1982). At first, the trainers misunderstood Jaskuła's talent. It was not until a few months later that he was able to prevail and win the silver medal in the national cycling championships in the junior category time trial . In 1981 Jaskuła was appointed to the U23 national team.

After two years at WLKS Wielkopolska, Jaskuła joined Gwardia Katowice . With him his brother Roman went to Upper Silesia , with whom he was Polish runner-up in the team time trial. The period from 1984 to mid-1985 was the hardest in Jaskuła's entire career. After leaving Katowice , he signed a contract with Team Lech Poznań . A short time later he was already in the service of another club called Stomil .

In September 1985, after much back and forth, he pulled on the shirt of Orlęta Gorzów Wlkp. over. There he met the amateur road world champion from 1985 Lech Piasecki , who, since he opted for a professional contract with the Italian team Del Tongo-Colnago , only stayed in Gorzów for half a year.

From then on, Jaskuła's shoulders were responsible for the sporting successes. At the Polish championships he was able to win gold in the time trial three times in a row, from 1986 to 1988 . There were also medals in the pair time trial : silver in 1987 with his brother Roman and bronze in 1988 with Robert Chełstowski .

Severe injury

In 1982 in Austria he was rammed by a car that overlooked the moving column. He was diagnosed with a fracture of the base of the skull and it was predicted that he would not return to the peloton. Jaskuła, however, fought back.

In 1986 Jaskuła made his debut on the Peace Tour . In 1985 he won a stage in the French stage race Circuit Cycliste Sarthe . In Western Europe, Jaskuła took part in several amateur races. In the 40th edition of the Peace Tour in 1987 , Jaskuła landed in 5th place, in 1989 he was even third in the most important cycle race in the Eastern Bloc countries. He also showed himself from his good side in the Federal Republic , when he got 2nd place in the overall ranking of the Lower Saxony Tour . At the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988 Jaskuła won the silver medal in the 100 km team race. At the time, the Polish national team also drove: Marek Leśniewski , Andrzej Sypytkowski and Joachim Halupczok .

Professional time

Zenon Jaskuła in the 1993 Tour de France

As vice world champion of the amateurs in the 100 km team race in 1989 and after another 2nd place in the Lower Saxony tour , he moved to Italy , where he signed a contract with the Diana-Colnago team . He remained loyal to the Italian teams until the end of his career. Jaskuła drove for: Del Tongo-MG Boys (1991), GB-MG Maglificio (1992–1993), Jolly Componibili-Cage 1994 (1994), Aki-Gipiemme (1995), Brescialat (1996), Mapei-GB (1997) and Ros Mary-Amica Chips (1998).

He immediately finished second at Tirreno-Adriatico and won gold at the national road racing championships . After the average season in 1991, Jaskuła returned with some top placements in 1992. At the Tour de France 1993 he was surprisingly third behind the Spaniard Miguel Indurain and the Swiss Tony Rominger . In addition, Jaskuła won two stages (one in the team time trial ).

Jaskuła could not build on this success in the following years. Although he finished third at Milan – Turin in 1994 and the Tour de Suisse in 1995 , the big coup did not materialize until 1997. After a pretty messed up Tour de France , he went on a reparation tour in Portugal . Jaskuła won the difficult Volta a Portugal and was also runner-up in the Tour de Pologne .

End of career

In preparations for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta , the story of 1982 repeated itself. Jaskuła was hit by a car, fell and broke his thigh. The injury healed, but Jaskuła lagged behind the shape of his heyday.

Readers of the sports newspaper “ Przegląd Sportowy ” voted him the second best athlete in Poland in 1993.

After the career

After the end of his career, Jaskuła tried his hand at business. In Stara Miłosna near Warsaw he opened a branch of the Italian company Mapei , which produces adhesives and pastes.

Familiar

His brother Andrzej Jaskuła was also a cyclist.

Web links

Commons : Zenon Jaskuła  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Zenon Jaskuła in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Zenon Jaskuła in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Zenon Jaskuła in the Tour de France database(French / English )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ L'Unità . Nuova Iniziativa Editoriale SpA, Rome November 14, 1983, p. 12 (Italian).