Irena Szewinska
Irena Szewinska was an athlete for the ages: the Polish princess of the track, the epitome of grace, speed and power, with her majestic stride.
'The First Lady of Polish Sport', Poland’s president Andrzej Duda called her when she lost her long battle with cancer in 2018, aged 72.
It is 50 years since Szewinska became the first athlete – man or woman – to set world records at 100m, 200m and 400m. She remains the only one.
In securing this groundbreaking feat, on home ground at the Stadion RKS Skra in Warsaw on the evening of 22 June 1974, the leading lady of Polish sport compounded her place in track and field posterity as the first woman to run 400m inside 50 seconds.
Not that there were many present to witness the historic 49.9 seconds.
Looking at the fading black and white footage of the race in the Janusz Kusocinski Memorial, there appear to be more folk on the infield than sitting in the near-empty stands.
Janusz Szewinski had a prime view near the finish line. One of Poland’s leading sports photographers, he also happened to be Irena’s husband and coach.
Indeed, it was he who persuaded the 28-year-old veteran of three Olympics Games – with six medals already in her possession, including gold from the 200m in 1968 – to move up to the 400m.
“Irena built up a tremendous amount of endurance as she got older and her speed at the 200m was increasing, not decreasing,” he said. “It seemed logical that the 400m would be the ideal distance for her.”
Szewinska shared her husband’s confidence. Asked by Janusz whether she thought she could break 50 seconds, she replied: “Yes, absolutely no problem.”
In her first one-lap outing, in 1973, she clocked 52.0. Her second was at the Kusocinski Memorial in 1974.
Drawn in lane two, Szewinska tore through 200m in 22.9 and crossed the line in 49.9, smashing the world record figures of 51.0 held jointly by Jamaica’s Marilyn Neufville and Monika Zehrt of East Germany.
A month past her 28th birthday, Szewinska had entered the golden second phase of a trailblazing career in which she collected seven Olympic medals in five different events.
Teenage prodigy
Her debut came in Tokyo in 1964, aged just 18.
She finished second in the long jump with a national record of 6.60m, behind the 6.76m world record that landed gold for Britain’s Mary Rand. She also claimed silver in the 200m, finishing just 0.1 behind Edith McGuire of the US in 23.1.
The teenage prodigy struck Olympic gold as the second leg runner in a Polish 4x100m relay quartet which scored an upset victory over the US.
Szewinska’s Tokyo spikes are on display in the Museum of World Athletics (MOWA).
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Irena Szewinska timeline of Olympic achievements (© Christel Saneh)
At 19, Kirszenstein became a double sprint world record-holder in 1965, clocking 11.1 for 100m in Prague and 22.7 for 200m in Warsaw.
By the time of the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, she had become Irena Szewinska.
She was disappointed in her first two events there, failing to qualify for the final of the long jump and finishing third in the 100m, but in the final of the 200m she overcame a slow start to win in world record time, 22.58.
Four years later, Szewinska – now a mother – clocked 22.74 in the 1972 Olympic final in Munich but that was only good enough for bronze. Time had moved on in the women’s 200m, and so had the times.
Renate Stecher took gold in the Olympiastadion in 22.40, completing a world record sprint double, having won the 100m in 11.07. Between August 1970 and June 1974, the powerful East German was unbeaten in 90 straight outdoor races at 100m and 200m.
Her winning run was brought to an end when she came up against the revitalised Szewinska early in the 1974 outdoor season.
After setting national records of 11.0 for 100m and 22.3 for 200m, the Pole twice beat Stecher convincingly on East German soil. In Berlin on 12 June, she clocked 11.2 into a headwind, winning by 0.1, then scorched to a 200m world record of 22.0 in Potsdam the following day, leaving the East German 0.5 adrift.
With that vamped up basic speed in her long legs, Szewinska proceeded to smash through the 50-second barrier for 400m in Warsaw and then beat Stecher over 100m and 200m at the European Championships in Rome.
In the final of the 4x400m in the Stadio Olimpico, she ran a stunning 48.5 anchor leg for the fourth-placed Poles.
Out of the blocks, Szewinska’s finest lap came at the Montreal Olympics in 1976. At the age of 30, she produced a devastating final 100 metres to finish 10 metres clear of the 18-year-old East German Christine Brehmer in a world 400m record 49.29.
The spikes Szewinska wore in that majestic Montreal display are on display in the MOWA.
Legend
Her last great triumph came at the inaugural IAAF World Cup of Athletics in Dusseldorf, where she led a Europe Select women’s team to an upset win over East Germany.
Szewinska played an inspirational captain’s role. After a decisive victory over Olympic champion Barbel Eckert over 200m, she emerged victorious from a gripping 400m duel with Marita Koch, clocking 49.52, the second fastest time in history.
At the European Championships in Prague the following year, the burgeoning Koch won in a world record 48.94. Szewinska finished third in 50.50, taking her tally of European medals to 10.
Her final fling came at the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Aged 34, she exited the 400m at the semifinal stage with an achilles tendon injury.
Thereafter, Szewinska served her sport with distinction as a prominent World Athletics and IOC official until her death in 2018.
In December 2018, she was awarded a World Athletics Heritage Plaque in the posthumous category of Legend, with the plaque unveiled on 19 August 2020 in a ceremony before the Irena Szewinska Memorial Meeting in Bydgoszcz.
Simon Turnbull for World Athletics Heritage
