Polish athlete who specialised in the pole vault. Kozakiewicz was born on 8 December 1953 to a Polish family in Šalčininkai, Lithuanian SSR, near Vilnius as the fourth and youngest of four siblings. His father Stanisław was a tailor, his mother Franciszka a housewife. Bałtyk Gdynia, and one day in 1966 encouraged his then russian ladies pole vaulter-year-old brother to also give athletics a try.
He showed his brother how to pole vault and Władysław’s talent was soon noticed by Walenty Wejman who became his first coach. In 1972 Władysław Kozakiewicz broke Polish junior records both indoors and out, also breaking the 5 metres barrier for the first time. 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 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. The next season while again full of victories at various meetings, saw Kozakiewicz narrowly missing out on medals at two major international competitions.
In 1979 Kozakiewicz won the European Indoor Championships in Vienna, his second gold at this competition, improving the indoor European record to 5. He later won the 1979 Summer Universiade in Mexico City where at altitude he jumped 5. 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. This irritated Kozakiewicz, who after jumping 5. 70 metres, higher than any other competitor that day, showed the bras d’honneur gesture in defiance to the jeering spectators.
He then repeated the gesture after clearing 5. 75 metres which ensured his victory over the local favourite, Konstantin Volkov. The photos of the incident circled the globe, with the exception of the Soviet Union and its satellites, although the event was broadcast live on TV in many countries of the Eastern Bloc. The Russian crowd was whistling at any non-Russian contestant.
They were whistling to distract us, you can only imagine the noise: 70,000 people at the Luzhniki Stadium, probably only 10,000 of them were tourists. It occurred to me that I’m the only person in the world who got whistled at for breaking the world record. So when I landed, I showed them this ‘Polish shaft’, the nicest one you can imagine. If you take a look at TV broadcasts, you find that people either clap rhythmically when they feel like it, or simply sit quietly. Excerpt from a 2018 interview for Culture. In 1982, struggling to get into form after splitting from his long-time coach Ryszard Tomaszewski, Kozakiewicz won what would be his last medal for Poland, a bronze at the 1982 European Indoor Championships in Milan. Even after his disqualification ended in 1985, Kozakiewicz was not allowed to participate in meetings abroad unless he jumped 5.
