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Warsaw museum acquires five medals won by Polish Olympic great

01.07.2021 15:01
Five Olympic medals won by Poland’s Irena Szewińska have been added to the two already exhibited at the Museum of Sports and Tourism in Warsaw.
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Medals won by Polish Olympian Irena Szewińska.
Medals won by Polish Olympian Irena Szewińska. Photo: Klaudisz Madeja

The medals were donated to the museum by the family of the great Polish athlete during a ceremony held on the third anniversary of the death of the woman who has been described as the First Lady of Polish sport.

A five-time Olympian between 1964 and 1980, Szewińska won seven medals, including three gold, in five different track-and-field events.

She set eight individual and two team world records and was the first woman to run 400 metres in under 50 seconds.

Szewińska’s long athletics career ended after her fifth Olympics, in Moscow in 1980. She then became deputy head of the Polish Olympic Committee and a long-standing member of the International Olympic Committee. She died on June 29, 2018, at the age of 72.

Klaudisz Madeja visited the Museum of Sports and Tourism in Warsaw to admire the medals and spoke to Marta Marek from the museum's research department

Among the multiple awards and honours granted to Szewińska is the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest state distinction, which she received in 2016.

She also has a special place in the International Association of Athletics Federations Hall of Fame, while the spikes that she wore at the 1976 Olympics are now on display in the Museum of World Athletics - the world’s first 3D virtual sports museum.