Irena Szewińska died two years ago. “There are voids that you can’t fill”

Getty Images / Ian Walton / Getty Images / Irena Szewińska died at the age of 72

–

Her illness was not a secret, but Polish sport could not prepare for the loss of Irena Szewińska. Because he couldn’t. Exactly two years ago, on June 29, 2018, the greatest athlete in the history of Polish sport left us, winner of as many as seven Olympic medals, including three gold ones.

most outstanding

– There is always a void left after loved ones. However, there are voids that cannot be filled – he told us (more HERE) after her death Włodzimierz Szaranowicz. The legendary TVP commentator saw a lot (or maybe everything?), He experienced the departures of many outstanding Polish athletes. However, he had no doubt that Szewińska’s death was a powerful blow.

Szaranowicz was lucky to experience her greatest successes, young fans and journalists had stories and archival recordings, but fortunately she did not let her forget about herself and did not let anyone remember her only from the treadmill.

VIEW VIDEO: Orlen does not resign from supporting Polish sport during the crisis. “We’ve increased our budget by almost 100 percent”

She was the president of the Polish Athletics Association, the vice president of the Polish Olympic Committee, a member of the IOC and IAAF. Always where Polish athletes took part in important events, and when they won medals, she hung them around their necks.

Always elegant, graceful, received with great respect. – During the Games, in the Olympic zone, there are meetings of IOC members. Presidents, heads of state and invited show business stars appear. Everyone approached her with incredible admiration. The most popular, the most recognized. Only Sergei Bubka could match with her, and now Sebastian Coe – Szaranowicz revealed.

Because during her sports career she was a star of Usain Bolt. Her achievements are unbelievable – seven Olympic medals (including three gold) at three games, ten at the European championships (five gold), world records. Great at 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, in the long jump – was a phenomenon on a global scale.

Words more important than medals

However, it did not appear only where the cameras and thousands of fans. Spreading sport among children and youth was her great passion. Just a few weeks before her death, she was the guest of honor at the annual Olympic picnic in Warsaw’s Żoliborz. Full of verve and optimism, she argued to invest in children and sport. – Because sport is a fantastic invention – she said.

Perhaps her constant struggle and commitment to promoting sport means no less than Olympic medals? How many young players decided to focus on sport after a short meeting with a legend? For how many athletes was praise from the champion the biggest reward?

In relation to athletes, she was always respectful, supported in difficult times, and they knew that whatever happened, they could count on her. Robert Korzeniowski thanked her for her great help, when after a memorable disqualification at the Barcelona Games many put a cross on it, and she stood behind him wall and fought to the end to keep the scholarship for the player.

After her death, Justyna Kowalczyk revealed that before the decoration at the Olympic Games in Sochi, Szewińska asked her for an autograph. – I was stuck! Ms Irena (THIS MRS IRENA !!!) is asking for her autographs! That she was there that evening was more important and important to me than receiving Olympic gold! – wrote an outstanding ski runner.

When Szewińska was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, she did not intend to change her lifestyle. She was present all the time, her voice could be heard all the time, she was everywhere where important things were done for Polish sport. She bravely appeared to be sick, just like on a treadmill, not letting herself think of failure.

Emptiness

She was strongly involved in the organization of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the same ones that were to begin in the capital of Japan in a few weeks. It was a special place for her – it was there that in 1964 a Polish woman won her first Olympic medals. The success of these games was to be her last mission.

However, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic meant that this spring was decided to postpone the event. Irena Szewińska did not live to see it, she died suddenly, at the age of 72, Polish and world sport lost her too soon. Was it not possible to postpone it?

In such difficult and complicated times, not only for sport and Olympism, we lack it even more. Her voice of reason but, above all, respect for another human being, whom one must look for more and more often.

Irena Szewińska. A flesh and blood star

report an error

– .