Polish Olympic team in disarray. They chose to emigrate. The leader leaves the group

The Polish Ski Association published the full composition of the individual cadres for the Olympic Games. Apart from the jumpers, whose names we learned on Sunday, jumpers and representatives of alpine skiing, snowboarding, Nordic combined and cross-country skiing will fly to Beijing.

The games are at their belt, and the Polish team is in disarray. Guilty studies in the USA

In the case of the latter discipline, the invocations are quite surprising. Magdalena Kobielusz, who has not been subject to personnel training, will fly to China. However, she confirmed her high form as she won two medals at the Polish championship in Zakopane. The list of names also includes Zuzanna Fujak, who is referred to as the talented one, but she is only 17 years old. Karolina Kaleta, who won the bronze medal at the Junior World Championships last year, is missing.

It turns out that Kaleta’s absence is the aftermath of her decision to go to the United States, where she started her studies. – Since she left, it has had a tremendous decline in form. It was therefore known that she was not actually fighting for the Games anymore. The competition was between Zuzia, Karolina Kukuczka and Daria Szkurat – explains Jan Winkiel, secretary general in an interview with Sport.pl.

Such a trip to the USA was decided a year earlier by Karolina’s older sister – Weronika Kaleta. She was called up, but during the last Tour de Ski she did not show high form either. Last winter, she won World Cup points. Now it was at the highest 47.

– We have doubts about this American road. We announced them to the players. Endurance sports require rigor, supervision and discipline. We criticized this trip in particular in the case of Karolina, because being a competitor of this class, she should stay and train on the spot, but we will not keep some things. We gave her another chance, but in the end the girls make these decisions themselves – she says. He also adds that a similar situation applies to Magdalena Łuczak, a promising Polish alpine skier, who is also studying in the USA.

– Here, however, we will be more rigorous, because Magda has a much higher sports level. She wants to come back to the US in the middle of the games, but we have already told the coach that if she wants to do it, she has to pay back the money for four years of preparation – emphasizes Winkiel.

The leader of Polish runners leaves the group. He trains with Kowalczyk-Tekieli

Of course, two leaders of our team – Monika Skinder and Izabela Marcisz – will represent Poland in cross-country skiing during the Olympics. However, the movements of the latter also start to bother people from the running environment and the activists themselves. It is about her individual cooperation with the runners who stopped training after last season and went to the biathlon, where she is a sports director.

– I trust very much what Justyna says – she admitted in an interview with us. – I will learn from her experience. She knows what, when and how to say it. I think you need to trust one sentence, one person, she added in the context of the games she will go to for the first time in her career. Marcisz also has no reasons not to trust the best Polish runner. Under her supervision, he improves his form and reaches for P¦ points. Some, however, wonder if the trainings with Kowalczyk do not undermine the work of a trainer employed by PZN.

– My answer is this: between our camps, the girls have a break for individual training. I have no influence on who they work with at the time. They have the right to train with club coaches or just with Justyna. Iza used this time this way and it is not a problem for me – said Martin Bajciciak, the coach of our runners in a pre-season interview with the portal. Unofficially, however, it is said that the youth world champion almost completely separated herself from his group.

– Indeed, we have some concerns about it. We are wondering how to arrange it after the season – confirms Winkiel. The union has a plan for this group, which actually looks – to put it mildly – scattered. After all, less than two years ago, when they were still leading the team together with Kowalczyk-Tekieli, the young runners brushed against the gold of the World Junior Relay Championship (they were eventually disqualified). Now it seems almost everyone is pulling in a different direction. – We will require some declarations from the girls. Then, step by step, it will have to be rebuilt, concluded Winkiel.

We will also see male staff in Beijing. Dominik Bury, Kamil Bury and Mateusz Haratyk were appointed. The latter does not have the official confirmed qualification yet, but the secretary general of PZN says that the British will probably not use his seat, so Haratyk will almost certainly go. This will mean that the Polish team will be able to put on the relay for the first time since the Olympics in Sochi (2014).