Irena Szewińska (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Kirszenstein; Polish pronunciation: ; 24 May 1946 – 29 June 2018) was a Polish sprinter who was one of the world's foremost athletes for nearly two decades, in multiple events. She is the only athlete in history, male or female, to have held the

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...

in the 100 m, the 200 m and the 400 m.

Personal life

Irena Kirszenstein was born in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

family. Her father came from

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

and mother from

Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

. They met in

Samarkand fa, سمرقند , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from the top:Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zinda, ...

where they studied at the time, and in 1947 moved to Warsaw. In 1967, she married her coach, Janusz Szewiński, who also competed in

hurdles Hurdling is the act of jumping over an obstacle at a high speed or in a sprint. In the early 19th century, hurdlers ran at and jumped over each hurdle (sometimes known as 'burgles'), landing on both feet and checking their forward motion. Today, ...

at the national level and later worked as a sports photographer. They have two sons, Andrzej Szewiński (born 1970), who played

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

for the

Poland men's national volleyball team The Poland national men's volleyball team is controlled by the Polish Volleyball Federation, which represents the country in international competitions and friendly matches. Poland is one of the world's strongest teams, they are ranked first in ...

and later became a

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

, and Jarosław (born 1981).SZEWIŃSKA (KIRSZENSTEIN) IRENA
pkol.pl In 1970, Szewińska graduated from the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...

with an MSc degree in

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

. On 29 June 2018, her death was announced by her husband Janusz Szewiński. She died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

aged 72 in

at the Military Institute of Medicine on Szaserów Street. Irena Szewińska was buried as a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

at the "Avenue of the Meritorious" in the

Powązki Military Cemetery Powązki Military Cemetery (; pl, Cmentarz Wojskowy na Powązkach) is an old military cemetery located in the Żoliborz district, western part of Warsaw, Poland. The cemetery is often confused with the older Powązki Cemetery, known colloquiall ...

. In 2020, she was posthumously honoured with a

World Athletics World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...

Heritage Plaque, one of the first ever awarded, during a ceremony before the Szewinska Memorial meeting in

Bydgoszcz Bydgoszcz ( , , ; german: Bromberg) is a city in northern Poland, straddling the meeting of the River Vistula with its left-bank tributary, the Brda. With a city population of 339,053 as of December 2021 and an urban agglomeration with more ...

. In 2021 she was voted Polish Sportsperson of the Century by the readers of the ''

Przegląd Sportowy ''Przegląd Sportowy'' (, ''Sports Review'') is the oldest and now the only Polish sports daily, founded in 1921 in Kraków. In 1926 it initiated an annual, popular plebiscite for the Polish Sportspersonality of the Year. Its current editor-in-chie ...

'' magazine. During her career, she had been elected as

Polish Sports Personality of the Year The Polish Sports Personality of the Year ( Polish: ''Plebiscyt Przeglądu Sportowego na najlepszego polskiego sportowca roku'') is chosen annually since 1926 by the readers of the newspaper ''Przegląd Sportowy'', which makes it the second oldest ...

four times by the same magazine.

Career

Between 1964 and 1980 she participated in five

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

, winning seven medals, three of them gold. She also broke six

s and is the only athlete (male or female) to have held a world record in the 100 m, 200 m and the 400 m events. She also won 10 medals in

European Championships The European Championships is a multi-sport tournament which brings together the existing European Championships of some of the continent's leading sports every four years. The inaugural edition in 2018 was staged by the host cities of Berlin, ...

. Between 1965 and 1979 she gathered 26 national titles and set 38 records in the 100–400 m sprint and

long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a gr ...

.Irena Szewińska-Kirszenstein
. sports-reference.com At her first Olympics in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

in 1964, she took a silver medal in the long jump and 200 metres, and ran the second leg of the gold medal-winning 4 × 100 metres relay team. She was a double sprint winner at the

World Student Games In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

in 1965. In the same year she set her first world record, breaking

Wyomia Tyus Wyomia Tyus (pronunciation: ''why-o-mi''; born August 29, 1945) is a retired American track and field sprinter, and the first person to retain the Olympic title in the 100 m (a feat since duplicated by Carl Lewis, Gail Devers, Shelly-Ann Fraser ...

' 11.2 s from the previous year with an 11.1 s clocking in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

, July 9, 1965. In 1966, at the

European Athletics Championships The European Athletics Championships is a biennial (from 2010) athletics event organised by the European Athletics Association and is recognised as the elite continental outdoor athletics championships for Europe. Editions First held, for men ...

she won Gold in the long jump, 200 metres and 4 × 100 metres relay; and took a silver in the 100 metre sprint. At her second Olympics in Mexico, She won a bronze in the 100 metres, but failed to qualify for the Long Jump final. She recovered from that disappointment, to win the gold medal in the 200 metres in a new world-record time. In the sprint relay the Polish team dropped the baton on the final exchange in the semi-final and finished last. After giving birth to her son, in 1971, she managed a bronze medal in the long jump at the European Championships in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

. She would compete in the three events at the

Munich Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and commonly known as Munich 1972 (german: München 1972), was an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972. ...

in 1972, the two sprints and the long jump. She would come away with a bronze medal in the 200 metres. In the 1974 season, she became the first woman to break the 50-second barrier for 400 metres, and she set a new world record of 22.21 s for 200 metres. At the European Championships in the

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

she won the sprint double of 100 metres and 200 metres, beating the favoured GDR sprinter

Renate Stecher Renate Stecher (, ; née Meißner, born 12 May 1950) is a German (former East German) sprint runner and a triple Olympic champion. She held 34 world records and was the first woman to run 100 metres within 11 seconds. Biography Born as Renate ...

; and ran the anchor leg on the 4 × 100 metres relay team which took the bronze. She was ranked number 1 in the world in the 100, 200 and 400 m events in 1974. She would win her final Olympic medal in Montreal in 1976, by winning the gold in the 400 metres in a world record time of 49.28. At the inaugural World Cup of Track and Field in 1977, she would win both 200 metres and 400 metres; beating both favoured

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

runners

Bärbel Wöckel Bärbel Wöckel ( Eckert; born 21 March 1955 in Leipzig) is a retired East German sprinter. She never ran a world record in the individual disciplines. However, she ran several world records as part of relay teams with Doris Maletzki ...

and Marita Koch respectively. She would be ranked number 1 in the world for 200 m and 400 m in 1976 and 1977. In her final appearance at the European Championships at 32 year of age, she managed to win a bronze in the 400 metres and the 4 × 400 metres relay. She was ranked number 1 in the world 7 times in the 200 metres; 4 times in the 400 metres, and 2 times in the 100 metres; as well as 3 times in the long jump. Over-all, she was ranked 15 years in the top ten at 200 metres, also 4 times number 2, twice at number 3, which just leaves 2 years outside the top 3; (from 1964 to 1977 she was ranked in the top 3 – 200 metre runners in the world) a remarkable achievement. She was ranked 12 times in the 100 metres, 8 times in the long jump and 6 times in the 400 metres (which she took up in 1974). She obtained

United Press International Athlete of the Year Award The United Press International Athlete of the Year Award was conferred annually between 1974 and 1995, one each to the individuals adjudged, without restriction to nationality or sport contested, to be the male and female ''athlete of the year'' by ...

, Female 1974. She won the European Sportsperson of the Year presented by the

Polish Press Agency The Polish Press Agency ( pl, Polska Agencja Prasowa, PAP) is Poland's national news agency, producing and distributing political, economic, social, and cultural news as well as events information. The agency has 14 news desks in its headquarters ...

twice in 1966 and 1974. In 1998, Szewińska became a member of the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

. She was the president of the Polish Athletic Association 1997–2009. On 3 August 2005, she was elected as the third woman to the

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...

(International Association of Athletics Federations) Council during the first session of the 45th IAAF Congress in

. She was a member of the

International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame ( he, יד לאיש הספורט היהודי, translit=Yad Le'ish HaSport HaYehudi) was opened July 7, 1981 in Netanya, Israel. It honors Jewish athletes and their accomplishments from anywhere around ...

, and the IAAF Hall of Fame.

International competitions

¹Representing Europe

References

External links

* * *
Jews in Sports

International Who's Who. accessed 4 September 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Szewinska, Irena 1946 births 2018 deaths 20th-century Polish Jews Jewish female athletes (track and field) Polish female sprinters Olympic athletes of Poland Olympic gold medalists for Poland Olympic silver medalists for Poland Olympic bronze medalists for Poland International Olympic Committee members Athletes (track and field) at the 1964 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1968 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1972 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1976 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1980 Summer Olympics Athletes from Saint Petersburg Polish female long jumpers European Athletics Championships medalists Medalists at the 1976 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1972 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1968 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1964 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists in athletics (track and field) Olympic silver medalists in athletics (track and field) Olympic bronze medalists in athletics (track and field) Universiade medalists in athletics (track and field) Soviet emigrants to Poland Polish people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Deaths from cancer in Poland Track & Field News Athlete of the Year winners Universiade gold medalists for Poland Medalists at the 1965 Summer Universiade

Personal life

Career

International competitions

See also

References

External links