Powell wrote:Marcin Lewandowski finished second in Birmingham, just behind Mohamed Aman, in 1:45.41, a big PB, putting him 22nd on the world's all-time list (no. 10 in Europe). He reportedly still hasn't made the final decision on going to Istanbul, and will do it after Stockholm on Thursday (where he will race against Adam Kszczot).
Lewandoswski has a 10.6x 100m pb according to his iaaf bio - is that kind of speed pretty normal for an 800m specialist?
It can't be true at all. The result isn't listed either on all-athletics or on his profile on the polish athletics federation so I have strong doubts about it. In my opinion he wouldn't even be capable of running 11-low. Otherwise, with his 800/1500 endurance, he should be able to run at least 46 flat.
I agree with Sasuke - Lewandowski running 10.6 doesn't sound credible. And I agree with Vencio that it would be great to see both Kszczot and Lewandowski in Istanbul, so it's great to see that they both seem to consider going there as increasingly likely. Without them, the Polish team would basically be stuck with Majewski as the only medal contender
As I noted earlier, Kszczot and Lewandowski are running the 800 tonight in Stockholm. In the women's 1500, five Poles will be competing, including Cichocka, Chojecka and Pliś. Rogowska and Pyrek are also on the start lists.
On the first day of the indoor national champs in Spała, the only world-class result was Tomasz Majewski's 21.05. Karolina Tymińska was DQed in the heats of the 60H, and won the LJ gold with 6.44. Łukasz Michalski won the PV title with 5.60 (Wojciechowski absent due to food poisoning). Dariusz Kuć took the men's 60 with 6.70 (6.68 in the heats) and Daria Korczyńska the women's with 7.33. Jakub Krzewina was the fastest in the heats of the 400 with 46.85. The final will take place today. Sylwia Ejdys pulled out injured 100 meters before the finish while in the lead in the women's 3000. The biggest news of the day was the announcement that Adam Kszczot and Marcin Lewandowski will both be going to Istanbul. However, neither of them is competing in the nationals.
Anna Rogowska took the PV win with 4.71 SB. Monika Pyrek was only third at 4.30 Paulina Guba qualified for the WIC by winning the SP with 17.79. In the 60H, Artur Noga and Dominik Bochenek also achieved the qualifying standard with 7.65 and 7.68 respectively.
Men 800: Adam Kszczot (1:44.57), Marcin Lewandowski (1:45.41) 60H: Artur Noga (7.65), Dominik Bochenek (7.68) SP: Tomasz Majewski (21.27) 4x400: Jakub Krzewina, Łukasz Krawczuk, Grzegorz Sobiński, Łukasz Domagała, Marcin Marciniszyn Women 1500: Angelika Cichocka (4:07.83) 3000: Lidia Chojecka (8:55.05) SP: Paulina Guba (17.79) Pen: Karolina Tymińska
Anna Rogowska and Łukasz Michalski decided to give the WIC a miss, as previously announced. Renata Pliś, who also had the qualifying standard, is missing as well, but I'm not sure of the reasons (deliberate or injury).
Henryk Szost set a huge NR at yesterday´s Lake Biwa marathon, placing second ın 2:07:39. The time is exactly 2 minutes faster than his previous PR, and 1:44 below Grzegorz Gajdus´s old Polish record. The performance really put Szost on the map in global terms. It might only have made him 42th fastest in the world last year, but considering nearly everyone ahead of him is Kenyan... If you count only 3 athletes per country, he would have been no.11. The time also makes Szost the fastest European in four years, and the 15th fastest ever.
Well, I hope we don't argue that about Tambwe -- he's been based in France since 1999, and earned citizenship in 2006. Moreover, when he ran his 2:07:30 in Tiberias a few weeks ago, the EAA reported of his performance that it was "...the fastest time by a European for almost four years," which is rather like this EAA headline: "Poland's Szost runs fastest European marathon for four years."
In any case, these two endings to the 4 year drought of sub-2:08 performances by Euro marathoners are worth noting.
Łukasz Nowak took the win in the Polish 50k walk championships held during the walks meet in Dudince, Slovakia. He beat his PB by over 2 minutes to finish in 3:44:24 and place second overall behind Alex Schwazer. Rafał Sikora took the silver in the NC (and 3rd place overall) with 3:46:52.
Grzegorz Sudoł DNFed the race due to stomach problems. He still doesn't have an Olympic qualifying time (his only 50k last year was in Daegu, where he DNFed), so he might have to do the World Cup in May if he thinks of competing at this distance in London.
Karolina Jarzyńska qualified for the Olympic team in the marathon by finishing the NYC marathon in 1:11:58 a week ago (she had a marathon qualifier from last year, but the national federation wanted her to confirm her form with a sub-1:12).
Katarzyna Kwoka and Jakub Jelonek got their OG qualifiers in the 20k walk in Lugano (also a week ago) with 1:31:25 and 1:21:22, respectively.
17-year old hammer thrower Malwina Kopron set a big PB with 64.79 two days ago in Kielce. Her best last year was just 57.03, which gave her silver at the world U18 champs.
At the racewalking meet in Zaniemyśl on Saturday, Paulina Buziak improved the national record at 20k to 1:29:44, beating Sylwia Korzeniowska's mark from 2006 by 47 seconds. Agnieszka Szwarnóg finished second with 1:30:56, a big PB and Olympic A qualifier. In the men's race, 6 guys finished in under 1:21:30, and 5 of them set PBs. The race was won by Dawid Tomala in 1:20:50, ahead of Rafał Augustyn 1:20:53 and Grzegorz Sudoł 1:20:58. After this, Poland has at least 4 walkers with Olympic qualifying marks in each of the 3 events.
I've been absent for a couple of weeks, so here's a quick roundup of recent results:
Marcin Chabowski qualified for the OG by running 2:10:07 at the Dusseldorf marathon on 29 April. Chabowski was the 2005 European junior champion in the steeple, but later switched to running on the flat and has been progressively moving into running longer distances. Dusseldorf was only the second marathon he finished and a PB by over 4 minutes.
Otherwise, there's been some tremendous results from Polish athletes in the throws, primarily at this weekend's nat'l universities champs in Łódź. Żaneta Glanc won the DT with 65.33 PB, a pretty good improvement over her old best of 63.99. Przemysław Czajkowski also set a PB in the discus with 65.61 and thus got the Olympic A qualifier (this was his second PB of the season, as he had thrown 64.88 just 9 days earlier). Paweł Fajdek continued his progress with 79.82 in HT. He competed in Japan the previous week, but didn't do as well (75.97 in Fukuroi and 76.31 in Kawasaki). And, most surprisingly of all, two javelin throwers also got A qualifiers for London. Paweł Rakoczy took the win with 84.99 PB (previous best was 82.53), but the real shocker came from 21-year old Bartosz Osewski with a previous best of 72.30, who finished second with 83.89 :shock:
Piotr Małachowski started his season well, first winning in Białystok with 65.62, and then taking first place at the Doha DL a week later with 67.53. Szymon Ziółkowski, meanwhile, has not reached good form so far, starting with 73.72 in Kawasaki and 73.74 in Łódź.
Hammer thrower Joanna Fiodorow set a PB with 71.51 on 3 May in Białystok, which would have been a London qualifier, but the national federation does not recognize marks from low-key domestic meets for qualifying purposes, so she will have to do it again. Damian Kusiak came close to the A qualifier in Biała Podlaska with a 20.45 put (also a PB).
Polish walkers did not impress too much at the World Cup this weekend. The best showing came from the 50k specialists Rafał Augustyn - 10th in 3:49:53 and Rafał Sikora - 14th in 3:51:43. Grzegorz Sudoł started the race well, but DNFed again, and thus missed his last chance at qualifying for London Łukasz Nowak, fastest Pole this year at 50k, withdrew during the race, too. At 20k, only Rafał Fedaczyński did relatively well with 15th place in 1:22:05. The other men, as well as the entire women's and junior teams finished way back.
Pretty much all of Poland's top throwers will be competing in Halle on Saturday. Tomasz Majewski will open his outdoor season going against David Storl in SP. Damian Kusiak will be in that competition, too, as will Krzysztof Brzozowski (throwing the senior shot). Piotr Małachowski will face Robert Harting in DT, with Przemysław Czajkowski and Robert Urbanek (hoping for an Olympic qualifier) also competing. Paweł Fajdek and Szymon Ziółkowski are in the HT, and Paweł Rakoczy in JT. On the women's side, Anita Włodarczyk is making her season debut in HT, where Joanna Fiodorow will be hoping for an official Olympic A standard. In DT, Żaneta Glanc, Joanna Wiśniewska and Wioletta Potępa are all on the entry lists. The full entry lists are available from HERE
There was another good overall showing by the Polish throwers in Halle: mDT: Piotr Małachowski finished 2nd behind Harting with 68.94. This is the 3rd best mark of his career, and the first time he ever had four 68+ throws in one competition (the full series was 68.31 66.02 66.93 68.37 68.94 68.46). In fifth place, Robert Urbanek set a PB by over 2.5 meters throwing 66.93, going into second place on the Polish all-time list. Przemysław Czajkowski continued his recent consistent form with 64.52 and 8th place. mSP: Tomasz Majewski finished one cm behind Storl with 21.12, a pretty good season opening. Damian Kusiak did well with 20.23 for 5th place. He is getting more consistent, and isn't too far from making the Oly team. wHT: Anita Włodarczyk second with 74.88, just behing Zheng, also a promising season opening. Joanna Fiodorow finished 3rd with 71.04, less than half a meter from Oly qualifying mark.
Last edited by Powell on Sun May 20, 2012 11:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
wDT: Żaneta Glanc was second with another PB. This time she improved by 1 cm to 65.34. Joanna Wiśniewska got close to Olympic qualifier with 61.73 in her first competition of the year, good enough for 7th place. Wioletta Potępa was some way down with 59.10 in 9th place. mHT: Paweł Fajdek won, although the mark of 76.65 was a bit disappointing. Szymon Ziółkowski set a SB with 74.10 in fourth place, still a long way from his best, but he usually gets it together later in the season.
Poland now has 9 throwers with Oly A this year. It seems likely the final number will be at least 12, and five of them (Majewski, Małachowski, Włodarczyk, Glanc, Fajdek) look like realistic medal contenders.
Apart from the marathon and walks, the only other Olympic qualifier so far is Katarzyna Kowalska, who ran 9:41.29 in the SC in Shanghai. Marcin Lewandowski finished way down in 7th in 1:48.51, but I wouldn't be too worried, since his early-season races are normally poor.
Poland's top male vaulters competed in the Tadeusz Ślusarski Memorial in Żary yesterday. The competition was won by Ukraine's Maksym Mazuryk with 5.62. Paweł Wojciechowski cleared 5.52 for second place, and Łukasz Michalski did only 5.42 officially, but he took an extra fourth attempt at 5.62 and went clear.
Artur Noga had a decent season opening, running 13.61 (+1.6) and 13.63 (+1.7) in Katowice this weekend. At the same meet, Krzysztof Brzozowski got 18.81 with the 7.26 shot.
In Bydgoszcz, Kamil Kryński set a PB at 200 with 20.80.
Piotr Małachowski finished second in Turnov on Tuesday with 67.37 (behind Harting's world-leading 70.66). Robert Urbanek had another good result there with 64.24 in fourth place.
Yesterday in Zielona Góra, Wojciech Praczyk set a national junior record with the junior discus, throwing 63.22.
The Polish federation nominated the Olympic teams in the marathon and 50k walks as follows: Men's marathon: Henryk Szost (2:07:39), Marcin Chabowski (2:10:07) 50k walk: Łukasz Nowak (3:44:24), Rafał Fedaczyński (3:46:05 in 2011), Rafał Sikora (3:46:52) Women's marathon: Karolina Jarzyńska (2:27:16 in 2011)
As usual, a fairly big group of Polish athletes will be competing in Ostrava. The HT competitions, featuring Anita Włodarczyk and Paweł Fajdek, are taking place today, while the remainder of the meet is tomorrow.
Great competition by Paweł Fajdek in Ostrava. Not only did he had his first ever throw over 80 meters, he actually did it twice with 80.06 followed by 80.36, and had two more over 79. He might have lost the competition to Pars by nearly 2 meters, but he is increasingly looking like a serious Olympic medal contender.
Włodarczyk was very slightly down on her result from Halle, taking 3rd with 74.81. I guess I hoped for some progress from her, but at least she had a very consistent series: 74.08 74.80 74.81 74.61 73.05 73.63. At this point I'd actually consider Fajdek more of a medal hopeful for London than Włodarczyk. On the women's side, it's likely going to take a 76+ to get on a podium, and it might even be 77+, so she has some way to go. Fajdek, on the other hand, is already throwing distances which are likely to be good enough to medal.
Adam Kszczot won his first race of the season in Ostrava in 1:44.90 on Friday, and took another win in Hengelo yesterday with 1:43.83. This is only the second sub 1:44 of his career, after 1:43.30 in Rieti at the end of last season. Marcin Lewandowski finished 4th in Hengelo with 1:44.34, also easily getting the Oly qualifying standard.
Tomasz Majewski finished 2nd behind Dylan Armstrong in both Ostrava and Hengelo, with 21.01 and 20.87 respectively.
Artur Noga also competed in both meets. In Ostrava he finished 3rd in the B race with a wind-aided 13.53 (+2.2), but he improved to 13.45 (-0.6) for 3rd place in Hengelo, an Olympic A qualifier.
Żaneta Glanc again showed her consistency with a win in Hengelo, throwing 64.71. Thus, in the 3 competitions she's had so far this year, she got the 3 best results of her career.
Polish 4x100 team ran 38.88 in Ostrava, which means they can now be sure of Olympic start (they already had a certain place in the top 16 with their performances from last year, but the national federation wanted them to run no slower than 39.00 this year).
Szymon Ziółkowski, after a series of performances in the 73-74 meter range, unexpectedly improved to 78.51 yesterday in Forbach, France, to qualify for the Olympics.
Anna Jesień improved her SB to 56.50, but still looks far off her best, and a full second off the Olympic qualifying time. Monika Pyrek has been struggling as well; in her latest competition in Gdańsk on Friday, she only managed to clear 4.30 (=SB).
21-year old Izabela Mikołajczyk improved by nearly 200 points to win the national heptathlon title with 5968. In the process, she also improved her HJ best by 6cm to 1.87.
Łukasz Michalski won in Dessau on Friday with 5.62. Przemysław Czerwiński was 5th in Ostrava with the same height.
Michalski also won yesterday's PV meet on the pier in Sopot, but in the windy conditions he only managed to clear 5.42. The women's competition was won by Lisa Ryzih with 4.61. Anna Rogowska, who was scheduled to compete there, withdrew citing a slight injury.
It was a good day for Polish runners yesterday in Rome. Marcin Lewandowski took second place in 1:44.64 behind Leonard Kosencha, and two others ran Olympic A standards: Renata Pliś 4:04.48 at 1500 and Łukasz Parszczyński 8:21.80 in the SC.
The field eventers, on the other hand, not so much. Piotr Małachowski was down in 5th with 64.96 and Paweł Wojciechowski only cleared 5.42.
Polish women's 4x100 relay team ran 43.78 yesterday in Marseille. The time is faster than the Olympic qualifying standard set by the nat'l federation, but it looks like they will have to improve to make sure of being among the 16 teams that qualify (as of 20 May they were in 15th place).
At the Pre meet in Eugene, Tomasz Majewski finished second and got a big SB with 21.60 to go into 3rd place on the world list. Adam Kszczot did not have the best of days, finishing 5th in 1:44.71. Anita Włodarczyk progressed to 75.60, and finished a close second behind Betty Heidler and ahead of Tatyana Lysenko, so she's gradually starting to look more like an Olympic medal contender. She had a good series, too, with three throws over 75. Żaneta Glanc was a bit down on her earlier results this year, though still not bad, taking 3rd place with 62.84.
Last edited by Powell on Sun Jun 03, 2012 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
There were some interesting results at today's European Athletics Festival in Bydgoszcz. The weather was not too warm, and a bit too windy, but that seemed to affect some more than others.
Women's HT 1 Joanna Fiodorow 74.18 That was the highlight of the meet for me. PB beaten by over 2.5 meters, and she's suddenly looking like top 8 material for London Currently, this result makes her no. 10 in the world this year. She got the big one in the first round of the competition, and had one more throw over 72 meters.
Women's 400h 1 Vanya Stambolova BUL 54.08 2 Natalya Antyukh RUS 54.50 3 Anna Yaroshchuk UKR 55.28 4 Anna Jesień 55.46 Very good race. Antyukh, who had been looking out of shape until now this season, was actually leading until the final hurdle. I was surprised by Jesień getting the Olympic qualifier, too, since her previous SB was just 56.50.
Men's PV 1 Łukasz Michalski 5.72 2 Maksym Mazuryk UKR 5.62 3 Paweł Wojciechowski 5.62 Michalski became the first Polish vaulter (of either sex) with an Olympic A qualifier this season. Wojciechowski is finally starting to look like he's coming back to some sort of form. He had lots of misses along the way (including two at 5.22), but some of the clearances looked impressive, too, so he should be able to get the Olympic standard before long.
Men's 800 1 Marcin Lewandowski 1:46.14 2 Gareth Warburton GBR 1:46.31 Not the most impressive victory by Lewandowski, but I guess that's just a stage in his Olympic preparations.
Men's 110h (-2.2) 1 Jeff Porter USA 13.41 2 Balazs Baji HUN 13.54 3 Ty Akins USA 13.60 4 Artur Noga 13.77 Pretty good running by the top 2, considering the headwind. Bad run by Noga, who actually had a good start by his standards, but never really got up to speed.
cont. Men's 400h 1 Michael Tinsley USA 49.55 2 Rhys Williams GBR 49.58 3 Nathan Woodward GBR 49.98 5 Marek Plawgo 51.36 Not a good comeback for Plawgo. He had a hard time maintaining his rhythm, and was never really in it. He believes he can still get the Olympic standard, though. I'm not too hopeful, but we'll see at the NC in 2 weeks.
Men's SC 1 Hillary Yego KEN 8:17.31 2 Silas Kitum KEN 8:23.07
Men's DT 1 Robert Urbanek 64.28 2 Piotr Małachowski 62.84 3 Przemysław Czajkowski 61.67 Surely the biggest shocker of the meet. I'm starting to worry about Małachowski - he started the season very well, but now seems to be back in the same rut as last year.
Men's 4x100 POL 39.12
Men's 4x400 POL I 3:04.45 POL II 3:04.67 Disappointing performances for the relays. The 4x100 has a sure place in the OG, so they don't need to worry much (and they have already run 38.88 this year), but the 4x400 need to step it up very considerably at the EC, which are going to be the last chance. I think they'll need to run around 3:01 to make the top 16...
Women's LJ 1 Teresa Dobija 6.61 2 Anna Jagaciak 6.54
Women's 4x100 BLR 43.54 POL 43.84
Women's 4x400 POL 3:29.33 IRL 3:30.61 Surprising result for the Polish 4x4 team, who may now actually have a chance of qualifying for London (if they get one more decent performance). It's the fastest they've run since 2009, and given that it was only a circuit meet without strong opposition, and that two of the women ran individual races earlier in the afternoon, they might be able to go faster. The 4x1 team is still poor. They'll need to run a whole lot faster to have a chance of going to London, I'm afraid.
norunner wrote:Where is Rogowska and what's wrong with Pyrek?
Last I heard Rogowska withdrew from the Sopot pier vault competition with a slight injury. Her website says her first meet of the season will be the national champs in 2 weeks' time.
Re Pyrek... she hasn't really been the same since Dancing with the Stars. It's like the motivation is no longer there. She is still trying to qualify for the OG, and might get there in the end, but I don't see her as a serious contender. BTW, I forgot to mention that Pyrek competed in Bydgoszcz and won the competition with 4.40 (she then had three failures at 4.50).
Yes, that's a fantastic result for Fajdek. Moves him to no. 2 on the Polish all-time list (and no. 49 in the world). What's significant is that he beat Krisztian Pars, the most consistent int'l thrower of the last couple of years. And Pars didn't have a bad competition himself, taking second place with 80.22. Szymon Ziółkowski finished way down in 7th with 73.10.
Powell wrote:Yes, that's a fantastic result for Fajdek. Moves him to no. 2 on the Polish all-time list (and no. 49 in the world). What's significant is that he beat Krisztian Pars, the most consistent int'l thrower of the last couple of years. And Pars didn't have a bad competition himself, taking second place with 80.22. Szymon Ziółkowski finished way down in 7th with 73.10.
I wonder when will Karolina TYMIŃSKA and Chuzik compete?No competion for chuzik since 2011 indoors,no competions for Tminska oudoors this year.
I'm not sure Chudzik is ever going to make a comeback. She had serious problems with her Achilles, from what I heard. I don't know Tymińska's current status - I presume she's injured, but no idea if she's coming back soon.
And speaking of comebacks, Sylwester Bednarek will be competing in Opole today. It's an HJ-only meet, and his competition will include Ivan Ukhov and Jaroslav Baba.
Izabela Mikołajczyk 1990 born of POL added a 5cm to her previous pb 1.87m, 1.92m /11th European ranking in Opole,6,June.by the way,her best mark before 2012 outdoors stands at 1.81m.This means she get the B standard in hep/5968p/33th in european this year and HJ,the only polish to get B standard in HJ,will she quit hep soon for poor SP?career best is 11.14m indoors. look at her hep 5968p: 14.07/1.4 1.87 11.00 24.63/0.3 6.14/0.2 42.02 2:20.44
Currently, this result makes her no. 10 in the world this year. She got the big one in the first round of the competition, and had one more throw over 72 meters.