page_title: Władysław Kozakiewicz
section_title: The dominant years
hierarchical_section_title: Władysław Kozakiewicz / Athletics career / The dominant years
caption_attribution_description: Władysław Kozakiewicz, 1980 Olympics
context_page_description: Władysław Kozakiewicz is a retired Polish athlete who specialised in the pole vault. He is best known for winning the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and the bras d'honneur gesture which he showed to the hostile Soviet crowd. In Poland, where the gesture was viewed as a symbol of resistance against Soviet dominance, it became known as "Kozakiewicz's gesture". In addition, he won several medals at continental level, won two Summer Universiades and broke the pole vault world record three times, twice outdoors and once indoors. He is also a ten-time Polish champion.
context_section_description: At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Kozakiewicz was one of the favourites for the gold but the Olympic debut ended in a disappointment. During a warm-up jump before the final, he ruptured his joint capsule and was later only able to clear 5.25 metres which gave him the 11th place. The competition was won by his unheralded compatriot, Tadeusz Ślusarski. Kozakiewicz was able to return to competition just three weeks after Montreal. Soon after, however, he was disqualified by the Polish Athletic Association (PZLA) for competing in the shoes of the Japanese manufacturer Onitsuka Tiger, with which he signed a contract a year earlier, instead of Adidas, which was then the official sponsor of the federation. This resulted in Kozakiewicz being barred from competing abroad for six months and marked the beginning of a series of disputes with the national federation and bans for insubordination.
  The disqualification was eventually shortened so that Kozakiewicz could compete at the 1977 European Indoor Championships in San Sebastián which he won in a new championships record of 5.51 metres. This started a very successful season in which he, among others, won the Summer Universiade in Sofia and set a new European record of 5.66 metres in the European Cup semifinal in Warsaw. In the entire year he suffered only one loss, at the 1977 World Cup, where, representing Europe, he came second behind the American Mike Tully.
  The next season while again full of victories at various meetings, saw Kozakiewicz narrowly missing out on medals at two major international competitions. First he came fifth at the 1978 European Indoor Championships in Milan, and then, affected by an illness, fourth at the 1978 European Championships in Prague. The latter performance was deemed a big loss by the federation and he was handed another half-year disqualification.
  In 1979 Kozakiewicz won the European Indoor Championships in Vienna, his second gold at this competition, improving the indoor European record to 5.58 metres. He later won the 1979 Summer Universiade in Mexico City where at altitude he jumped 5.60 metres.
  The 1980 season did not start very well as he finished only fourth at the 1980 European Indoor Championships in Sindelfingen, West Germany, the competition won by the Soviet Konstantin Volkov, who would be Kozakiewicz's main rival at the upcoming Moscow Olympics. However, in May that year at a meeting in Milan, Kozakiewicz for the first time in his career broke the world record with a mark of 5.72 metres. The record was later that summer bettered by two Frenchmen, first Thierry Vigneron added three centimetres to it and then Philippe Houvion another two, setting it at 5.77 metres.
caption: Kozakiewicz in 1980.
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