Korzeniowski makes retirement official

In a recent letter from the Polish Athletics Association, the IAAF has been informed of the official declaration of retirement by the world’s greatest ever race walker, Robert Korzeniowski. The 36 year-old Pole, who is the reigning World, Olympic and European champion and World record holder for the 50km Race Walk wrote to his national federation on 14 January to confirm that his sports career officially ended on 31 December 2004.

Korzeniowski had made a successful defence of his Olympic 50km title in Athens last summer, a discipline which he had also won in 1996 and 2000, a feat which widely had been understood to have marked his international retirement from the sport. However, when he competed in a couple of minor race walking meets in the autumn of last year – 5000m (1st place, 19:14.74) in Kraków on 11 September and 10km in Piacenza (1st place, 39:36) on 26 September – questions were raised about exactly how official was his retirement.

Korzeniowski’s statement has now firmly ended all speculation about the reigning double IAAF Race Walking Challenge champion's future.