Janina Skirlińska

Janina Skirlińska (8 March 1907 – 23 April 1993) was a Polish artistic gymnast who competed at the 1936 Summer Olympics. She was a member of the Polish women's team at those Olympics, where they placed 6th in the team competition. Additionally, she was the Bronze All-Around Medalist at the 1934 World Championships (the first-ever edition of those games that included a women's competition), helping her Polish team to the bronze medal at both that World Championships and the next edition of the World Championships in 1938.

Early life

Skirlińska was born on March 8, 1907 in the small village of Żurawiczki, Poland to Władysław and Helena (née Kwaśniewski) Skirliński who have alternatingly been described as belonging to the intelligentsia and landed gentry classes. She graduated from high school in the nearby larger town of Jarosław with a course emphasis on physical education and military training. In her years after high school, she both trained and taught at the Kraków branch of the Polish Sokół movement where she furthered her studies in physical education and military training.

Competitive career

Domestic record

Skirlińska's earliest competitive sporting endeavors included practicing athletics, shooting, archery, and fencing, but she ended up focusing on gymnastics as her primary sport. Throughout the 1930s, she won the Polish national all-around title 3 times (1935, 1937, 1938), and won 10 apparatus titles at that same level – 2 times on vault (1935, 1936), 4 times on balance beam (1935, 1936, 1937, 1938), 1 time on parallel bars (1938), and 3 times on the free exercises (1935, 1937, 1938).

International record

At the first-ever World Championships for women in 1934, she was the 3rd-place finisher, which stands in extreme contrast to her 40th-place individual result at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics where her marks in both the compulsory and voluntary segments on 2 of the 3 events contested were extremely low (48th place overall on the parallel bars and 36th place overall on the vaulting horse out of a field of 64 competitors), considering her performance at the preceding 1934 World Championships. Her results at those Olympics, in addition to standing in extreme contrast to her results at the 1934 World Championships, also stand in extreme contrast to her results at the second-ever World Championships for women in 1938, where, in the all-around individual standings, she was the 4th-place finisher (out of a field of 32 competitors), the highest-finishing non-Czechoslovakian female competitor at those championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Skirlinska's extreme misfortune at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics paralleled, with immediately adjacent juxtapositioning, the misfortune of Hungary's Margit Kalocsai, who finished just above Skirlinska, in 2nd place, in the individual standings at the 1934 Worlds, yet just behind her at the 1936 Berlin Olympics in 41st place. At those Olympics, incidentally, just like Kalocsai, it was Skirlinska's marks, in both segments of the competition, on both parallel bars and vaulting horse, rather than her relatively good placement on beam (5th for Kalocsai and 15th for Skirlinska), that contributed to her reversal in fortune.

Whereas Skirlinska's extreme misfortune at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics very closely paralleled that of Kalocsai, her extreme misfortune exactly paralleled that of her 1934 World All-Around Bronze Medalist male counterpart from Czechoslovakia, Emanuel Löffler who, exactly like Skirlinska, finished in 40th place here. Loffler was a very consistent mainstay of his Czechoslovakian team at the level of the World Championships and Olympics during this time period, also taking, in the all-around competition, 10th at the 1928 Olympics, 3rd at the 1930 World Championships, and 9th at the 1938 World Championships.

As a matter of record, Skirlińska's best event was the Balance Beam where she won more national titles (4) than she did on any other apparatus, tallied the 2nd highest score among the 40 competitors at the 1934 World Championships, placed 15th (as compared to 48th on bars and 36th on vault) at the 1936 Olympics, and came in 4th (among the top 10 all-arounders) at the 1938 World Championships.

Administrative and later life

During World War II, Skirlińska worked as a physiotherapist in a neurological and psychiatric clinic. Shortly thereafter, she enrolled in the College of Physical Education in Wrocław, graduating with her Magister (Master's) Degree in 1952, as well as obtaining her “1st class coach” title in 1953. Soon thereafter, she began a long period of employment as a Physical Education teacher at the prestigious Jagiellonian University in Krakow where, from 1957-1972, she was a full-time academic at the Department of Theory and Methodology of Gymnastics within the Department of Sports.

Overlapping some of the time that Skirlińska was an academic, she was also the coach of the national gymnastics team from 1949 until about 1960. She also served in administrative capacities within the sport, heading the Women's Committee for the board of the Polish Gymnastics Association. She also served as an international gymnastics judge at five world championships and three Olympics (1952, 1956, and 1968).

After Skirlińska's numerous decades of being a decorated sportsperson at the national and international level, being a wartime therapist, being a long-term academic and high-level sports administrator, and being an international judge at the highest level, she was awarded The Order of Poland's Knight's Cross in 1971, as well as The (Meritorious Activist of Physical Culture).

Skirlińska died on April 23, 1993 and was interred at the Rakowice Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Skirlinska, Janina
1907 births
1993 deaths
Polish female artistic gymnasts
Gymnasts at the 1936 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships
Olympic gymnasts for Poland
People from Jarosław
People from Przeworsk County
Sportspeople from Subcarpathian Voivodeship
20th-century Polish sportswomen