Blame game starts as Poland finishes Olympics with lowest medal haul since 1956

Poland has finished the Olympics in Paris with just one gold medal, its worst result since 1956. Its overall total of ten medals is also the joint lowest since 1956. Poland’s position of 42nd in the medal table is its lowest ever (though in the past fewer countries competed in the games).

By contrast, the Tokyo 2020 games were Poland’s best in two decades, with its competitors bringing home 14 medals in total, including four golds.

The disappointing result in Paris has already resulted in a political fallout, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk suggesting there are failings in how sports are managed in Poland. But the head of the Polish Olympic Committee has blamed the government for a lack of support.

As the games came to a close on Sunday, Poland was left with just one gold, won by speed climber Aleksandra Mirosław, who also set a new world record time during the games.

Its four silver medals were won by canoist Klaudia Zwolińska, boxer Julia Szeremeta, cyclist Daria Pikulik and the men’s volleyball team. Poland also won team bronzes in women’s fencing and men’s rowing, as well as individually for tennis star Iga Świątek, speed climber Aleksandra Kałucka and 400m runner Natalia Kaczmarek.

The 1956 games in Melbourne was the last time Poland only won a single gold, and 1948 in London was the last time it failed to win one at all. Melbourne was also the last time Poland recorded fewer medals than its Paris total. It won nine in 1956. However, in those days far fewer athletes were sent to the games.

At the Athens games in 2004, Poland also only won ten medals in total. However, those included three golds.

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There was particular disappointment this year that Kaczmarek was Poland’s only medallist in athletics. In Toyko, Poland won nine of its 14 medals on the track, and there had been high hopes this year that the likes of 2020 hammer throw champions Anita Włodarczyk and Wojciech Nowicki would again be challenging for gold.

However, in an Instagram post, shot putter Konrad Bukowiecki hit back at the criticism Poland’s athletes have been facing from fans.

“If you don’t win a medal, you are trash: that is unfortunately the narrative of fans who watch sport on TV once every four years,” he wrote. “You don’t always win, every athlete has their own problems, some do better, others worse. Anyone who can call themselves an Olympian is proud of it.”

Javelin thrower Maria Andrejczyk, who won bronze in Tokyo but finished eighth in Paris, also told the media about the “hate speech” she has suffered online. “This is the first time I’ve encountered it on such a scale,” she added, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “It is incredibly sad.”

 

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A post shared by Konrad Bukowiecki (@konradbukowiecki)

Tomasz Majewski, the head of Poland’s Olympic mission in Paris and vice-president of the Polish Athletics Association, admitted that “our golden generation [who performed so well in Tokyo] is ending and we have to work on a new one”.

However, there have also been some murmurs of discontent suggesting that athletes were not as well prepared as they could have been. After winning silver in the women’s omnium, Pikulik told broadcaster TVP that she had had to pay for her own training camp this year and received little other support and financing.

“We have really talented athletes, but what can you do on your own, without support?” she asked. “It clips your wings. Right from the start, you feel inferior. You feel like they don’t believe in you. You don’t have what you deserve.”

On Friday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk alluded to concerns over how sport is managed in Poland, saying it has become a “kind of closed system” and “a way for politicians and officials to earn a lot of money”.

“My intuition tells me that Polish [Olympic] medals will be among the most expensive in the world: the amount of money that went from public and corporate funds, when we translate it into the number of medals, something definitely doesn’t add up here,” continued Tusk.

He added that he did not want to say more while the Olympics were still continuing, but pledged that the “sports minister will certainly have a lot to say on this matter” once the games were over.

News website Interia reported on Sunday that Poland spent 472 million zloty (€109 million) on preparations for Paris.

Also speaking on Friday, the head of the Polish Olympic Committee, Radosław Piesiewicz, noted that it is not his organisation that is responsible for preparing athletes. That falls to the individual associations for each sport.

But “we have our thoughts on what went wrong”, he added, quoted by the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily. “Maybe competitive sport should be taken over by the Polish Olympic Committee”.

But Piesiewicz, who was appointed to his position in April 2023, also warned that “there is a lack of dialogue with the sports ministry”, which he also accused of failing to sign in time contracts relating to the Olympics this year and of not providing funds for preparations.

“This is a good time to start discussions about Polish sport and how it should be regulated,” concluded Piesiewicz. “Maybe the system needs to be changed.”

Main image credit: Kuba Atys / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.