Countdown
Poland’s 1958 European discus champion and former world record-holder Edmund Piatkowski passed away at the age of 80 on Monday (28).
He was born in 1936 near Lodz. In 1955, at the age of 19, he set the first of 13 Polish discus records. In 1958, he won the European title in Stockholm with a championship record of 53.92m, coming out on top of a thrilling competition which saw the first six men throw beyond 53 metres.
On 10 May 1959 in Pabianice, he broke the European record with 57.89m, having set an unraified European best of 57.55m nine days earlier.
On 14 June 1959, during the Janusz Kusocinski Memorial in Warsaw, he threw a world record of 59.91m and in August 1961 in Lodz, he again improved the continental record, this time to 60.47m.
Piatkowski participated at the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Olympic Games where he finished fifth, seventh and 12th respectively. He also represented Poland at the 1962, 1966 and 1969 European Championships where he was fourth, fourth and 12th.
He won the gold medal at the 1961 FISU Summer Universiade, and set a personal best and Polish record of 61.12m in 1967.
Polish Athletics Association for the IAAF
