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Home > Olympics > Gold Medalists > Stanislawa Walasiewicz
Stanislawa Walasiewicz
The Olympic Games, or Olympics, is an international multi-sport event taking place every four years which comprises of summer and winter games. Though the first ancient games were held in 776 B.C, the modern games started from 1896.The unity of the 5 continents is shown on the Olympic flag by five colorful intertwined rings of red, blue, green, yellow, and black, created by Baron Pierre de Coubertin to represent atleast one color of the participating country’s national flag.
Stanislawa Walasiewicz was born April 3, 1911 in Wierzchownia near Rypin, Poland. She was a Polish born and American athlete and an Olympic champion. She started her athletic career in a public school in Cleveland. In 1927 she easily won the competition for a place in the American Olympic team started by the Cleveland Press newspaper. However, Walasiewicz was not an American citizen and could not obtain one under the age of 21. However, after the success of Halina Konopacka, a Polish athlete who won gold in the discus throw at the 1928 Summer Olympics inspired Walasiewicz to join the local branch of Sokol, a Polish sports and patriotic organization active also among the Polish diaspora.
She won 5 gold medals in running for 60, 100, 200 and 400 metres, as well as long jump. She was asked to stay in Poland and join the Polish national athletic team. She also continued to run in various American challenges and games. In the 1932 Summer Olympics she represented Poland. In both the heats and the semi-finals of the 100 m, Walasiewicz equalled the current world record of 11.9 seconds, a feat she repeated in the final, which she won. The same day, she also finished 6th out of 9 in the discus throw event.
She appeared at the Championships of Warsaw, where he seized 9 gold medals, including one for 80 metres hurdling, one for 4 by 200 relay, and one for long jump. On September 17 in Poznan she beat two world records in one day 7.4 seconds for 60 m and 11.8 seconds for 100. A week later in Lwow she beat her own lifetime record of 7.3 for 60 m. Walasiewicz set over 100 national and world records, including 51 Polish records, 18 world records, and 8 European records. Her European record for 100 yards remains unbeaten as of 2006, although races measured in yards are rare today.
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