Inside Polish Sports

Volleyball is our national sport and you are cursed by Danhausen if you disagree! THIRTY major tournament medals between our Men and Women since 2003, and on Saturday Nikola Grbic's dominators won their third European Championship gold in that time span, clinching a spot at the 2028 Olympics. And we created this infallible, laughably consistent machine because we worked together. Universities, Schools, Clubs, Government etc. all created a system of synergy which, without a break, provides us with and supports young players, no matter whether they make the national team as rookies or come back after a 7 year exile and a bout with depression like Bartłomiej Lemański.
Kasia Niewiadoma also is a product of all parties responsible for Polish cycling working together to develop a brilliant talent, albeit one that just lost out on the World title to her archrival Demi Vollering. Whilst Bartosz Zmarzlik is more than anything a product of his own desire and bloody-mindedness, even if we still have to wait for a record seventh World title as Robert Lambert pipped him to the trophy.
As for the Footballers..................I don't even want to expand on that.

It is a fact of both life and Polish sport that Women are just better at everything. Maria Okrucińska proved just that last night in Montreal by winning the World Junior Time Trial title whilst Kasia Niewiadoma will go for the Road Race rainbow jersey on Saturday. Our Under 20 footballers may have gone out of the home World Cup but certainly didn't disgrace themselves after a 100% group stage record. Whilst on the track Klaudia Kazimierska destroyed her more experienced opposition in Brussels, Budapest and now at Crystal Palace.
On the men's side, Jan Urban's first competitive spell as Poland manager is sadly overshadowed by the meerkat on Wojciech Mońka's sweater and how some people have no right in the universe to scout for the fashion police. The Volleyball boys are in the Euro semis but that's where it starts going uphill on the road to the 2028 Olympics. And please don't let Rob Lambert or Brady Kurtz put Bartek Zmarzlik into the boards in case of the World Speedway title being decided in the final heat in Toruń. I'll fight them, you'll fight them, we're all fight them!

So in the fortnight that I've been on a job hunting break so many things happened that it would be apt to quote Macklemore and say that Polish sport, both on and off the field, is in "an F-ed up position".
Exhibit A is Iga and the most inexplicable collapse of her career against Qinwen Zheng. The problem with her right now is not the opponents, the injuries or the coaching staff. It's simply that she cares very much about playing and the greatness that we forced upon her since she was in grade school. And at age 25 it's still too early for her to have found the experience or meaning in life outside of the courts. She is the most public when winning or losing but in private she is isolated, which is the exact opposite of the structure that Tennis stars need.
Exhibit B is the Polish Olympic Committee, now liberated from Radosław Piesiewicz but still needing a complete overhaul and kumbaya with the great Olympians who have been shunned by the previous regime, most notably Justyna Kowalczyk.
Exhibit C is Jagiellonia Białystok whose manager texted with one of the linesmen last season to tell the ref in a crucial match to go easy on the bookings. Maybe not as bad a sin as Luciano Moggi speed dialling every ref in Italy during Calciopoli 20 years ago, but still something for which Jaga must suspend him before PZPN/Ekstraklasa give out bigger punishments.
Also, why Rodrigo de Paul taunting Lewy about not having won a World Cup is understandable purely from the Argentinian chauvinistic mindset, Damian Knyba moves closer to a heavyweight title shot by dispatching Andy Ruiz whilst Michał Cieślak becomes a Cruiserweight champ, but in accordance with Boxing's absurd system not the champion.
Hubert Wagner and the 1976 Volleyball Gold retrospective coming up on Friday or Saturday. Interview Episode next week.

Well who would have thought......... That the guy who was never an athlete or an Olympian himself yet posed on sponsorship billboards with our Olympians. Who used the Okęcie Airport VIP lounge for him and his family at least 35 times in just the first 18 months of his chairmanship. Who spent 12 million of our public złotys on a Polish House for our athletes in Paris which cost 30 euro to even walk into. Who gave our medalists from Milano/Cortina prize money in form of tokens and not cash while knowing that the exchange will go bust. Has now been arrested and charged with two counts, including one in which he accepted a 40,000 euro watch as a bribe from the head of that said crypto exchange that has now gone bust.
I would've never guessed.............

On this historical retrospective we take a look back at perhaps the most consequential image in Polish sporting history. It is a moment the place of which in time is not at all separate from what happened outside of the sporting arena.
On July 30, 1980 Władysław Kozakiewicz fought for Olympic pole vault gold against no less than three Soviets in front of a straight up abusive Moscow crowd. Yet once he cleared the bar at 5.70 meters, for a split second, he let the Russians know what he thought of them. Afterwards, both the Polish and USSR governments wanted to strip him of gold and the world record.
But the one party who could not scrub the image out of their minds were a weary and downtrodden countrymen. Just 15 days later the Gdańsk Shipyard workers went on strike, and the country and Europe as a whole would never be the same!
*This is a reupload from April 9, 2025*

In the early hours of Friday morning a 36-year-old head of Hutnik Kraków hooligans was beaten to the end of his life by nine people who claimed to be supporting Wisła but, just like all others who over the years have committed violence with Football as an alibi, are an affront to the sport and to our society. Whilst those senseless crimes between sets of club scarves
Also, apparently we aren't done writing Radosław Piesiewicz's future indictment because last year he accepted a gold-cased watch worth 40,000 euros from..........the CEO of the crypto exchange that sponsored the Polish Olympic Committee, which Piesiewicz is still inexplicably the head of, and defaulted on $800 million.
And a technically belated(Announced last week but this weekend was his first GP in charge) congrats to Marcin Budkowski, the new team principal of Cadillac F1! Hopefully the maiden point will come sooner than later.............
Beskid and Kraków Challenger interviews in a separate episode that will drop on Thursday at the latest. I promise!

Can we please bring Elway with Iga to every tournament from now on?! After 326 days it was once again Świątek Piątek(Czwartek) in Toronto as Elena Rybakina was on the back end our legend's 26th career Singles title. And what Iga said at both the trophy ceremony and press conference is even more valuable and noteworthy to anyone who has been doubting and doubted as an athlete and more broadly as a valuable human.
Also, Katarzyna Wilk-Wasick beat three world record holders to become Europe's fastest swimmer, no golds but plenty of silvers and bronzes on the track in Birmingham, how the hell is the cap worn by the Polish Speedway champion still awarded in spite of being gifted by the Soviets?, and an update on Kacper Prokopiak and how he'll fly soon to Elmira, New York to play in the NAHL despite no yet having the full funds.
Match report from Beskid Andrychów vs Pcimianka Pcim drops on Friday.

This weekend proved that it is not just the general populace that can be ignorant of athletes, their virtue, faults and humanity. Whilst Iga Świątek was steaming thru her best tournament this season in Toronto, Professor Ewa Woydyłło was calling her a "stupid and fearful girl" whilst her comments on Aryna Sabalenka do not even deserve to be printed. At least she had the nerve and courtesy to apologise which can't be said for any bots commenting below that now-deleted podcast.
Whilst on Friday Kasia Niewiadoma rocked the Cycling world by destroying Mont Ventoux and taking the Tour de France yellow jersey in a ride that left me and all other Poles watching in awe, if not in tears. 24 hours later she had lost the lead and vented out her frustrations on a 20-year Frenchwoman, who later inexplicably got death threats for her rookie mistake in the heat of competition from those you can never realise that it was just that and that the ladies can forgive each other for both words and action.
Also, Lewy scores again, Arek Milik scores for the first time since Charli XCX's Brat came out and my personal tribute to Unia Oświęcim's former MC/On-Ice Entertainer extraordinaire Zdzisław Kozaczek.
Kacper Prokopiak's fundraiser: https://pomagam.pl/ba4naw

This weekend just proved that our greatest sporting moments come when the need to make a living from a given sport is not guaranteed. Our volleyball internationals barely earn a tenth that of their Football counterparts, but have now won three Nations League titles in four years, eight major tournament golds since 2009 and Nikola Grbic is nine for nine as a head coach in finishing on the podium. Bartłomiej Kubkowski and Karolina Szczepaniak's motivation wasn't for their own gain but to raise money for Cancer Fighters and 14-year old Piotrek by swimming the frosty and murky waters of the Baltic from Sweden to Western Pomerania over 100 miles.
Meanwhile, on the Football side of things the general mindset is not only lazy, but Stanisław Mrożek's Tango level of decadent. Especially at Lech Poznań whose budget this season is US$53.67 million yet who can't even make it past ONE BLOODY ROUND of Champions League qualifying by dropping a three-goal first-leg lead AT HOME against a Danish side that last played in the competition when Through the Barricades by Spandau Ballet was topping the charts!
Forgive me for not doing the Montreal 1976 retrospectives yet but I'm at the physios this week and the next, and also it was too humid to travel to Kraków for Kajakowy Narodowy on Sunday so the interview with Klaudia Zwolińska will come at a later time.
Fundraiser for Kacper Prokopiak: https://pomagam.pl/ba4naw
 

It is kinda fitting that in the month that Nolan's The Odyssey came out the Homeric journey of movie lover Łukasz Fabiański came to an end at the age of 41. Fabian would've been remembered mearly as a great number two keeper behind the likes of Boruc and Szczęsny if it wasn't for his leap of faith in 2014. I will talk about how the move from Arsenal to Swansea and later West Ham truly made him unforgettable and brought him a European winner's medal and us some of the best moments from Euro 2016(Which in the perfect world he would've won too!). Enjoy the popcorn Łukasz!
Also, Wisła's victorious Ekstraklasa return features a smokation break, Matuesz Bogusz makes up for Lewy's initial MLS goal drought, there is a 13 year old from my hometown who's really good at Karting and how the curse of Polish heavyweight title pursuit is best characterised by why Mariusz Wach only fought Tyson Fury for Netflix purposes and not in a live broadcast(It has something to do with Ben Johnson's beloved stanozolol).
Interview with Klaudia Zwolinska(and maybe Michał Pasiut too) in next week's review. Also by Sunday I'll upload the first of the Montreal 1976 retrospectives.
Fundraiser for Kacper Prokopiak: https://pomagam.pl/ba4naw