At the last Olympic Games in Tokyo, Polish athletes won nine of the 14 medals won by the Polish national team, including all gold medals in the hammer by Anita Wladarchyk and Wojciech Nowicki in the 4x400m medley relay. Shooting, and Dawid Tomala 50 km walk. That's why the expectations of Polish fans are increasing before the quadrennial event in Paris. Research organizations that predict medal chances most often indicate that the Polish team will win 11 medals, which means that it will return the results from Rio de Janeiro, London and Beijing. Among the athletics athletes, the silver medalists of the World Championships held in Budapest, Natalya Kaczmarek and Wojciech Nowicki, have the best chances. These were the only medals of the Polish national team. The hope, of course, is the medley relay team defending gold.
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And how does Polsat Sport expert Artur Partik see the next 12 months?
Virtually every conversation about the future of athletics is related to the Paris Games.
I have a little problem with this, because in the Olympic year, 2023, the queen of sports did not give us an abundance of emotions, impressions and world records. Already in the domestic season, the Dutch Femke Boll broke the 400 m record, the Ethiopian Lamecha Girma broke the 3000 m record. In the open season, the athletes began to gain momentum from the beginning. American Ryan Cruiser hit a world record 23.56m while Kenya's Faith Kipyegon clocked an incredible 3:49.11 in the 1500m in Florence. Again in Paris, Girma achieved an unattainable result of 7.52.11 in the 3000m steeplechase. Already at the finish line, at the Diamond League Finals in Eugene, the incredible Armand Duplanty broke his own record with a height of 6.23m. If only for the reason that there were so many records last year, I did not expect such achievements. in 2024. Two or three best results in history at most, but of course anything is possible. I would most likely assume that the ones I mentioned like Kipyegon and Girma will improve. The latter will fiercely compete with the Moroccan Sufian El Bakal and improve his results.
Would you not bet on anyone outside of this group?
I have my favorites, my favorite actually, the understated Jamaican Sharika Jackson. In the sprint distances, it's always her compatriot Shelley-Anne Fraser-Pryce or American Sha'Kari Richardson who wins, and I think it's Jackson who comes closest to beating the late Florence Griffith-Joyner's 21.34 seconds. 200 m. I also hope for the American Sydney McLaughlin-Levron, who, due to a knee injury, took the last season off to prepare for the Olympics as much as possible. Let us remind you that he is the world record holder in 400 meters since 2022. In his case, it may approach the 50 second limit.
Do you think marathon runners have already hit a performance wall?
In the men's category, we have the world record set by Kenya's Kelvin Kiptum from October in Chicago, which is 2:00.35, so I think the symbolic two-hour barrier will be broken at one of the next opportunities. The women's record was broken a little earlier in Berlin, with Ethiopia's Tigist Assefa going under 2:12, so it will be tougher here. At this longest distance, I would not expect breakthrough results at the Olympic Games in Paris, because the route there will not be the easiest.
You've probably seen the medal predictions for Paris. The Polish team will win 11 medals, two of which are favorites in athletics – Natalya Kachma.Rec and Wojciech Nowitzki. Both won the only medal at the World Championships in Budapest.
As for the total number of medals for Poland, I am sure there will be more than 11, but we can say goodbye to the idea of repeating the result from Tokyo, where athletes won four out of 14 medals. Gold, two silver and three bronze medals, or nine discs.
Let's take a look at the favorites you mentioned. Although Natalya won two medals in the relay, it will be very difficult for her individually. The opponents are very strong. Shauna Miller-Uibo from the Bahamas and the most unusual of characters, Rashidat Adeleke from Ireland, who is my secret favourite. Dominican Marilady Paulino, the reigning world champion and Olympic runner-up, will surely maintain her level. In the hammer throw, we can count on Voytek, and so it is after the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, where he won bronze. He became an Olympic specialist, as did Pavel Faidek at the World Championships when he won five titles in a row. Pavel is also hungry, he really dreams of a podium like in Tokyo. So I hope for two medals for Poland. Among the contenders, I would place the biggest bet on world champion Ethan Katzberg of Canada, although he is 22 years old, the youngest player in the top flight, so his form can fluctuate.
We remind you that there are always surprises at the Olympic Games, and it may happen to us as well. Well, who would have expected that our walker David Tomala would win gold in Tokyo, who would have expected that our 4x400m medley relay would beat all the competition? I have a quiet candidate here, and that is Norbert Kobielski in the high jump, who finished second at the Eugene Diamond League Finals with a personal best of 2.33m, but that's enough about him, just to keep it off. I will add that this competition brings many surprises and Norbert believed that he was really jumping high. I follow with great interest the struggle of the all-round athlete, Adriana Sulek, to get to the Olympics. He's amazing, I'm in awe of his training when I'm very pregnant. Will he stay in shape? It may be difficult, but I hope to become one of the leaders of our sports queen.
Who else among the Poles can surprise in 2024?
We've worked up an appetite for Tokyo. Older champions leave the sport, young people are still not ready to fight for higher goals, as shown by the 2022 World Championships in Eugene and last year in Budapest, from which we brought four and two medals, respectively. We are among the leaders in Europe, but in a world dominated by the USA, Jamaica and African countries, we need to develop niches. We are in a correction moment, I can say that.
According to the decision of the IOC, the athletes of Russia and Belarus should participate in the Paris Games under a neutral flag, but there will be no athletics athletes among them, because the president of the world athletics, Sebastian Coe, did not agree. he.
I'm glad to have someone like Sebastian Coe at the helm of world athletics and have such an accurate opinion on the subject. The IOC's decision casts a shadow over the entire Olympic movement, as it seems that completely different opinions have emerged. In this discussion, I will return to the event of a few days ago, when the Polish chess player Jan Krzysztof Duda refused to shake hands while playing with a Russian supporter of the Ukrainian war. Let this symbolic gesture, this spontaneous reaction, be the best commentary, perhaps even a road sign for the athletes competing at the Paris Olympics.