Irena Szewinska is widely regarded as one of the greatest track and
field athletes of all time. Winning one gold and two silver Olympic medals at
the age of 18, she went on to win two further golds and two bronzes in
subsequent Olympic Games. She was the only female athlete to ever win medals in
four successive Olympiads, and the only athlete of either sex to hold world
records over each of 100, 200 and 400 metres.
Irena Kirszenstein was born to Jewish parents in Leningrad (now St.
Petersburg) on May 24, 1946. Her father, Jakub Kirszenstein was an acoustic engineer from Warsaw,
while her mother, Eugenia came from Kiev. The family moved to Warsaw in 1947.
Kirszenstein began competing in athletics in 1960 at the age of 14.
Tall and long legged, she demonstrated her potential by winning three gold
medals in the European Junior Games of 1964. One month later she contested the
same three events at the Tokyo Olympics, placing second to Mary Rand in the
long jump, winning another silver medal in the 200m and a gold as part of the Polish
4x100m relay team.
In 1967 Kirszenstein married her coach, Janusz Szewinski, a national
level hurdler.
In 1968 Szewinska went to Mexico as world record holder in the 200m. After
winning bronze in the 100m she pulled away from the field in the 200m to take
her first individual Olympic gold medal, beating her own world record time. Still
not fully fit after giving birth to her son Andrzej in 1970, she took the
bronze medal in the 200m in the 1972 Munich Olympics. In autumn 1973 she
switched to the 400m event and was the first woman to break 50 seconds for the
distance. She returned to the Olympic stage in Montreal in 1976 to win the 400m
in a new world record of 49.29, a time which still stands 42 years later as the
Polish National record. At her last Olympics in 1980 she suffered a muscle
strain that brought an end to her competitive career.
Szewinska’s sporting achievements also included five European
championship gold medals (and five other medals) and unbroken sequences of 38
victories over 200m and 36 over 400m. She set eight individual world records
and participated in two further relay world records.
After bringing her competitive career to a close, Szewinska took an
active role in several sporting and political organizations. She was the
president of the Polish Athletic Association for 12 years from 1997. As a
representative of the International Olympic Committee, she was a member of the team
checking the state of preparations for the Olympic Games in 2004, 2012
and 2020. In 2005 she was elected to the International Association of Athletics
Federations (IAAF) Council.
She was an inductee of the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and
the IAAF Hall of Fame.
Szewinska died at the age of 72 after a long battle with cancer. The
Olympic flag at the IOC Headquarters in Lausanne was lowered for three days in
her honour.
Irena Kirszenstein Szewinska, born 24 May 1946, died 29 June 2018
Irena Szewinska is survived by her
husband Janusz Szewinski and two sons, Andrzej and Jaroslaw.
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