“Multilayer Fracture”. Kowalczyk the best. She showed that the impossible does not exist

February 13 marks the ninth anniversary of Justyna Kowalczyk’s great success. In 2014 in Sochi, a Polish woman became an Olympic champion. On this occasion, we remind you of the text we published in 2020.

– In Davos she broke her wrist once, they immobilized her with a splint and the next day she competed. In New Zealand she fell and dislocated her thumb. He says: coach, if I manage to put a stick on this hand tomorrow, I will start. And took off. I had no doubts that he would also start with a broken foot here – argued Aleksander Wierietielny.

So normal? So for Justyna Kowalczyk just an ordinary day at the office? – Let’s not joke. It is beyond the imagination of a normal person to run with a broken bone in the foot. And run like this? “Oh my God! What is she doing? If only she wouldn’t fall, if she could hold on until the end” – I was standing one floor above the route in Sochi and I couldn’t believe what I saw – recalled Professor Szymon Krasicki.

– I told myself that I don’t care about all tactics and techniques, that I will either win or die. It would be 100 meters more and I would probably sit there on this route – said the Olympic champion a few moments after she won such a title for the second time in her career.

Coach Wierietielny cried when he saw the photo

It was Justyna Kowalczyk’s last great victory. Possibly the greatest of all. The winner fell behind the finish line for a moment. But a minute and a half later Marit Bjoergen was standing up watching the finish.

– The Norwegian is incredibly strong, she will probably win a set of six gold medals – Józef £uszczek told us before the women’s 10 km classic race at the Olympics in Sochi.

For three years, until her last pre-Olympic start, Kowalczyk won all such runs. But the last test changed everyone’s perception. – Now with a kiss of the hand I would accept a silver or even a bronze medal. Eh, everything has turned upside down – uszczek said. – At the Olympic Games in Lake Placid in 1980 I was fifth and sixth, and maybe I would have had medals if the doctors who operated on my foot before the season had done better. The damaged joint was repaired so that in the autumn one of the fingers had to be cut out. Unfortunately, you can’t cheat your health – added the 1978 world champion.

The ladies ran the 10 km classic in Sochi on February 13, and on February 1 in Toblach, as part of the World Cup, Bjoergen won the last test in reins. The second Therese Johaug lost to her compatriot as much as 36.7 s. Kowalczyk was fifth, 47.2 s behind Bjoergen.

We knew that in Italy our favorite was running with an injured foot and we were worried that it might ruin her chances. But the worst was yet to come. Four days before Justyna’s crown competition, on February 9, we found out that it was not a contusion but a fracture.

X-ray image of Justyna Kowalczyk’s foot Justyna Kowalczyk’s Facebook page

Kowalczyk decided to have her foot X-rayed only during the Games, not only to respond to the critics. Yes, there were surprisingly many who complained about her sixth place in the combined heat. In the 15 km competition to the best Bjoergen, the Polish woman lost 56.1 seconds. A lot, but not for the run, but Kowalczyk was preparing for the 7.5-kilometre “skating” section.

The X-ray picture was Justyna’s retort. But doing it made more sense. . She also talked about the relationship with the trainer, a man who has always been very close to her. Before a great fight for a great cause, she wanted everyone in her team to know what it was like.

– I think the breakthrough came after the X-ray of the foot in Sochi. Because the coach believed for a long time that it was only a bruise, when me and the physiotherapist already felt that it was a fracture, because it stopped healing. The coach saw that I was suffering, but I didn’t tell him everything. I ran around wearing glasses so no one would see my tears. I remember that when he saw the picture of the fracture, he cried, she said.

The foot broke in the collision with the leg. From the table

In the champion’s staff, the fight ended in gold lasted almost a month. On January 19, in Szklarska Poręba, Kowalczyk won the 10 km classic race in the World Cup. She also turned 31 that day. And at a birthday party with friends, she accidentally hit a table leg with her overloaded left foot, and an x-ray in Sochi showed that one of the metatarsal bones had fractured.

Only a month after the victory in Sochi, Kowalczyk in the Tomasz Lisa program on TVP told how she had suffered an injury. “I didn’t say that before, because we know our environment and it would be like there was some big party. After research, I know that the bone is broken due to fatigue. It needed a little stimulus” – she explained

Then the emotions subsided. But in Sochi, Kowalczyk provided us with even more than four years earlier. At the Vancouver Games, she became an Olympic champion for the first time, winning an exciting finish side by side with Bjoergen. She also won silver and bronze there. In Canada there were the greatest successes, and in Russia there was an athlete’s victory over himself and the mounting problems.

Hot needles cut nails. A moment later, a test

A kick on the table in Szklarska Poręba is not everything. – The beginning of the last pre-Olympic training camp in Santa Caterina looked like this, that the only thing that saved me was the elevator in front of the room. I was going downstairs, from there it was three meters to the door. There was a trainer in them. For these three meters I was just crying in pain, it was impossible to walk. But it was possible to cross-country ski, I don’t know by what miracle – said Kowalczyk, having already her longed-for and hard-earned gold.

– It was minus 25 degrees in Santa Caterina. Maciek Kreczmer frostbitten his nose. He came running to us and we saw that he was completely white. We acted in time, so he didn’t fall off. And I didn’t realize. Ski boots are very thin these days, of course I had covers, but my feet are always cold. I run on the pain of frostbite in my fingers all the time. And then I couldn’t judge that I was overreacting, because the pain was as usual. And the next day everything started to swell up, there were blisters and pus. There was hot needle cutting, stripping. This happened at the very end of the grouping. Two days later I had to put on my boots for the classic style and run in the World Cup in Toblach, continued the champion.

Blockade. Champagne. Fairy tale

In such circumstances, fifth place was great. And it gave Kowalczyk hope. The leg X-ray done in Sochi really only made things better. – It started to make a fuss after the combined race, so even though I hadn’t planned to have an x-ray before the 10 km classic, I changed my mind. I’m sure if I had done that before the Olympics, I wouldn’t have been allowed to compete. At 80 percent. And who does not risk, does not drink champagne. Justyna said.

Of course, she ran for the champagne on the blockade, i.e. the anesthetic injection. – I talked to doctor Stanis³aw Szymanik, who said that we can make a blockade. Maracaine, a drug that is not on the list of doping agents, is simply a painkiller, only you have to inject it into the sore spot. We tried it, it worked for three hours. A fairy tale – said Justyna.

“Oh my God! Marit Bjoergen was shuffling”

– A fairy tale indeed. I’ve seen thousands of runs in my life, but never one like this – says prof. Szymon Krasicki. – Polish Television had a purchased position on the first floor, from there there was a view of a part of the route. I watched Justyna run fast and energetically. I thought to myself “God, she can stand up in a moment”. She was the best in all times. When rivals are as strong as Bjoergen was then, the theory says that you have to spread your strength, and Justyna took an incredible risk. Please remember what Bjoergen looked like in the end. A great competitor shuffled – recalls the man under whose supervision Kowalczyk first earned her master’s degree, and then she did her doctorate.

At the time measurement point, after 2.2 km, the Norwegian was only 1.9 seconds behind the Polish woman. She was second after 8 km, although then with a clear 20-second loss. On the last, difficult ascent, she suffered so much that she was finally fifth, behind Charlotta Kalla (the Swede lost to Justyna by 18.4 s), Theresa Johaug (28.3) and Aina -Kais Saarinen (30.3). She lost 33.4 seconds to Kowalczyk. She was left without a medal, even though she was supposed to win the gold.

Justyna before decoration photo. Kuba Atys / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

The level of possibilities without revelations. But the head is the strongest

– Justyna has always been incredibly strong physically, but even stronger mentally. In Sochi, her head worked wonderfully and that was what Justyna was characterized by throughout her career. This is what distinguished her from other contestants. Because the level of her physical abilities has never been sensational. He was good, but not enough to predict as many as five Olympic medals, eight World Championship medals and four Crystal Balls for winning the World Cup – said Krasicki.

– Anyone who followed Justyna’s career remembers that she also had some technical shortcomings. Since she started skiing when she was 14-15 years old, she couldn’t be as good at downhill skiing as Bjoergen, who skied since she was a baby and was even a downhill skier at first. But in some very important respects, Justyna was unparalleled, the professor continued.

– She invented her style of climbing up hills. She walked like a thunderstorm with short steps. Other players looked like they had grown into the ground next to ours. Justyna left as the express train. I remember one summer when I saw Bjoergen practicing this step of Justyna on roller skates. Then Johannes Klaebo started doing it brilliantly. But in my opinion, neither she, nor him, nor anyone else in the world had such power in difficult situations as Justyna – continued the former coach.

“Justyna, how do you stand it?”. “It cost me a lot”

Krasicki strongly emphasizes that Kowalczyk’s mastery was in her head. – I remember our conversation after its first success. It was 2006, Justyna was still very young [mia³a 23 lata] and won the Olympic bronze at the Games in Turin. I knew that she had done a tremendous amount of work on her way to this success. Alone, because no one ran with her. I asked: Justyna, how do you cope with everyday, backbreaking training? How are you holding up? What’s on her mind when you have to endure those long hours of suffering again and again? She replied: “Professor, I only think about making every move as good as possible, because I have to carry out what the trainer told me.” Then I understood that thanks to this incredible concentration and motivation to work, Justyna would win great things, that she would endure more than others. And when she won in Sochi, after all these vicissitudes, she was obviously very happy and surrounded by a crowd of people, but what she told me was meaningful. I only went to her for a moment. I congratulated her, emphasizing that she had done a wonderful, unique thing. Then she became serious for a moment and replied: “Yes. But it cost me a lot.” Later we all understood how much, Krasicki said.

A man, not a machine

In February, Kowalczyk had her holiday in Sochi, and in June, on Sport.pl, she decided to do something that psychologists described as a form of confession and purification. “The last three years of my life turned out to be a lie,” she said.

– However, I must care a lot about sport, since I didn’t push everything at the time. But I knew I could do it. It’s my job. Task to do. And the side effect of my condition was that I was very skinny at the time, and that helped on the Olympic runs. Besides, I couldn’t disappoint myself here. If I had failed myself as a skier, I would have lost my last fulcrum. Of course I was happy with the medal. Like no other. On the podium, as tears flowed, I thought, “Jesus, I made it after these two years. It’s impossible.” I had a broken bone, my nails were pulled off after frostbite, but this is physical pain that can be overcome, Sochi recalled honestly.

When we heard about depression, about the lost child, about the lost will to live and about the struggle to regain it, we slowly began to see the mistress as a human being. Kowalczyk ran around Sochi for several more years. She also won the pre-Olympic trial in Pyeongchang and took part in the 2018 Olympics. But over the years, above all, she showed that even such feats as her one in Sochi do not belong to sports machines for winning medals. Because there are no such machines.