WKS Grunwald Poznań is a

multi-sports club A sports club or sporting club, sometimes an athletics club or sports society or sports association, is a group of people formed for the purpose of playing sports. Sports clubs range from organisations whose members play together, unpaid, and ...

based in

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. The

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball, Olympic handball or indoor handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of thr ...

section Section, Sectioning, or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents ** Section sig ...

had been champions several times whereas the

field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

is one of the top teams not only in the country but in Europe. Other sections have been champions in Poland and have had Olympic representation.

Naming history

*1947–1950: Wojskowy Klub Sportowy "Kadra" Poznań *1950–1957: Wojskowy Klub Sportowy Poznań *1957–present: Wojskowy Klub Sportowy Grunwald Poznań

Establishment

The club was founded by a group of officers and deputy officers of the Poznań garrison. The founding meeting was held at the seat of the Municipal Office of Physical Education and Military Training at ul. Matejki 61.KMP - Sport 1, Wydawnictwo Miejskie, Poznań 2010, str. 414 The name of WKS Kadra Poznań and the club's statute were established, the management board, the audit committee and the court of honor were elected. Kazimierz Gawrycki, the then commander of the MUWFiPW in Poznań, became the first president. The first sports sections were also established:

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

boxing Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as boxing glove, protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing Punch (combat), punch ...

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competitio ...

shooting Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missile ...

and

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

Sections

Active

The club has several active sections:

freestyle wrestling Freestyle wrestling is a style of wrestling. It is one of two styles of wrestling contested in the Olympic Games, along with Greco-Roman wrestling, Greco-Roman. scholastic wrestling, High school wrestling and men's collegiate wrestling in the U ...

orienteering Orienteering is a group of sports that involve using a map and compass to navigation, navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain whilst moving at speed. Participants are given a topographical map, usually a specia ...

taekwondo Taekwondo (; ; ) is a Korean martial art and combat sport involving primarily kicking techniques and punching. "Taekwondo" can be translated as ''tae'' ("strike with foot"), ''kwon'' ("strike with hand"), and ''do'' ("the art or way"). In ad ...

and

Athletics and orienteering

The orienteering section was founded in 1987. The first success of the section was winning in 1988 the gold medal of the Polish Championships in the relay, the team consisting of: Gliszczyński, Domagała, Niedzielski. In 1993 they recorded the first international success; the bronze medal at the Junior World Championships was won in the relay race by Robert Banach and Dariusz Mikusiński. Then came further successes: Dariusz Mikusiński became the vice-champion of the CISM Army World Championships, and Robert Banach became the Junior World Champion. The silver medal of the Championship was won by Janusz Gliszczyński, and the relay race with Małgorzata Stankiewicz came third. In the following years, Robert Banach and Sławomir Woźniak also won medals at the CISM World Military Championships. Since the founding of the section, its athletes have won over 300 Polish Championship medals. This success is largely attributed to long-serving coach Tadeusz Rutkowski, who over the years raised several generations of athletes who represented Poland in international competitions. Currently, 23 professional athletes belong to the section, and Bartosz Pawlak and Michał Olejnik are among the national leaders in their disciplines. In the athletics section, training is focused on senior squad, which currently has six professional athletes. Since its inception, the athletes have also won a large number of medals in the Polish Championships, as well as many medals in the World and European Military Championships. Competitors such as Henryk Szost, Michał Kaczmarek, Mariusz Giżyński and Monika Stefanowicz have repeatedly won individual and team medals in the military championships, and Henryk Szost is the current country record holder in the

marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of kilometres ( 26 mi 385 yd), usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There ...

with a time of 2:07:39.

Field hockey

The section was officially founded in 1952, after takeover of a 3 -time champion military club WKS Poznań dating back to the inter-war period The section is the most successful club in the country, a European contender since the early 90s and dominant force domestically, both traditional outdoor and indoor in equal measure.

Handball

The handball section is historically one of the most successful, and was a dominant force in the country in the 70s and 80s.

Freestyle wrestling

The freestyle wrestling section was founded in 1951, where recruitment was organised through the local press. The most notable athletes were

Władysław Stecyk Władysław Stecyk (born 14 July 1951 in Radowo Małe) is a Polish wrestler who competed in the 1976 Summer Olympics, 1980 Summer Olympics and 1988 Summer Olympics. Silver medalist at the 1980 Summer Olympics The 1980 Summer Olympics ...

, Grunwald athlete in 1969–1988; and

Monika Michalik Monika Ewa Michalik (Polish pronunciation: ; born 2 May 1980 in Międzyrzecz) is a freestyle wrestler from Poland. She participated in Women's freestyle 63 kg at 2008 Summer Olympics. In the last 16, she beat Volha Khilko from Belarus. In the qua ...

, bronze medalist of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olynpics and gold medalist of the

2017 European Wrestling Championships The 2017 European Wrestling Championships was held in Novi Sad, Serbia, from 2 to 7 May 2017. The winner of the silver medal in the 97 kg category, Anzor Boltukayev from Russia, was disqualified and deprived of the medal due to doping.https://un ...

Novi Sad Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; #Name, see below for other names) is the List of cities in Serbia, second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pannoni ...

Paweł Kurczewski Paweł Zbigniew Kurczewski (17 August 1950 – 13 December 2009) was a Polish wrestler who competed in the 1972 Summer Olympics and in the 1976 Summer Olympics. He was born in Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industria ...

was the world silver medalist in 1971, and Adam Sobieraj won the bronze medal at the

2010 European Wrestling Championships The 2010 FILA European Wrestling Championships was held in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 13 April to 18 April 2010. Because of the ongoing dispute over Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Armenia chose not to compete at this event for the safety of ...

. The club also has produced numerous Olympians regularly throughout its history. As a team they won the third division in their debut year in 1951 and the second division in 1952, winning promotion to the top division. They won the second division in 1970 and the Polish championship in 1972.

Shooting

The

section was founded on 12 March 1963. The club is a member of PZSS and WZSS.

Tennis

The tennis section was one of the first section founded upon establishment of the club, in 1947. However the section initially survived only until 1951. It was reactivated in the years 1959 to 1967. After this period, the section was only re-established 46 years later, on 11 June 2003. As a junior, the club was represented by

Magda Linette Magda Linette (born 12 February 1992) is a Polish professional tennis player. She has a career-high singles ranking of world No. 19, achieved in March 2023. She has reached eight finals on the WTA Tour, winning three titles, and the semifinal of ...

with successes at junior level. The section currently has 8 courts of which 2 are covered. The club won the women's team championships in 2010 and 2011.

Defunct

The following sections have existed in the past:

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically a ...

table tennis Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the Tennis court, court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of ...

Association football

Football was the first section to be created upon establishment of the club, and existed between 1947 and 1985. Although not the most successful section of the club by any means, it did reach the higher echelons of the league pyramid and did reach the latter stages of the

Polish Cup The Polish Cup in Association football, football ( ) is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout football competition for Polish football club (association football), football clubs, held continuously since 1950, and is the second most i ...

twice; in the 1966–67 and 1975–76 seasons.

References

Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grunwald Poznan 1947 establishments in Poland Military sports clubs and teams Multi-sport clubs in Poland Sports clubs and teams in Poznań Sports clubs and teams established in 1947