The Most Famous

ATHLETES from Poland

This page contains a list of the greatest Polish Athletes. The pantheon dataset contains 6,025 Athletes, 94 of which were born in Poland. This makes Poland the birth place of the 11th most number of Athletes behind Kenya, and Finland.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Polish Athletes of all time. This list of famous Polish Athletes is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Polish Athletes.

1. Stanisława Walasiewicz (1911 - 1980)

With an HPI of 59.72, Stanisława Walasiewicz is the most famous Polish Athlete. Her biography has been translated into 33 different languages on wikipedia.

Stanisława Walasiewicz (3 April 1911 – 4 December 1980), also known as Stefania Walasiewicz, and Stella Walsh, was a Polish-American track and field athlete, who became a women's Olympic champion in the 100 metres. Born in Poland and raised in the United States, she became an American citizen in 1947.

2. Hans Woellke (1911 - 1943)

With an HPI of 56.50, Hans Woellke is the 2nd most famous Polish Athlete. His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Hans-Otto Woellke (18 February 1911 – 22 March 1943) was a German shot putter, who won a gold medal at the 1936 Summer Olympics and a bronze medal at the 1938 European Championships. Woellke served with the Order Police. During World War II, he was a captain in the Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118 attached to a regiment in the Waffen-SS. He was killed by partisans on 22 March 1943 near Khatyn village, after which a retaliatory mass killing of civilians took place by Schutzmannschaft and Waffen-SS soldiers.

3. Gustav Flatow (1875 - 1945)

With an HPI of 55.24, Gustav Flatow is the 3rd most famous Polish Athlete. His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Gustav Felix Flatow (7 January 1875 – 29 January 1945) was a German gymnast. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens and at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. Flatow was Jewish, and was born in Berent, West Prussia. In 1892, he moved to Berlin.

4. Ewa Kłobukowska (b. 1946)

With an HPI of 53.55, Ewa Kłobukowska is the 4th most famous Polish Athlete. Her biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Ewa Janina Kłobukowska (born 1 October 1946) is a Polish former sprinter. She competed at the 1964 Olympics in the 4×100 m relay and 100 m sprint and won a gold and a bronze medal, respectively. She also won two gold and one silver medal at the 1966 European Athletics Championships. Kłobukowska set three world records, one in the 100 m (11.1 s, 9 July 1965 in Prague) and two in the 4×100 m relay (44.2 s, 13 September 1964, Łódź and 43.6 s, 21 October 1964, Tokyo). Kłobukowska was at one point considered to be the fastest woman in the world. The American Press made a statement, saying that nobody would beat Kłobukowska for the next 7–8 years following a race in Prague. Despite these successes and laurels, her records were annulled by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) after a sex identification test in 1967 wrongly labeled her as not female. The test procedures were later determined to be inadequate.

5. Myer Prinstein (1878 - 1925)

With an HPI of 53.40, Myer Prinstein is the 5th most famous Polish Athlete. His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Myer (or Meyer) Prinstein (born Mejer Prinsztejn, December 22, 1878 – March 10, 1925) was a Polish American track and field athlete who held the world record for the long jump in 1900 and won four gold medals in three Olympic Games for the long jump and triple jump. He was a member of the Irish American Athletic Club in Queens, New York. A 1902 law graduate and track team captain for Syracuse University, after college he became a New York real estate lawyer and businessman while living in Jamaica Plains, Queens. To date, he is the only Olympic track athlete to win both the triple and long jump in the same Olympics, earning the distinction in St. Louis in 1904.

6. Janusz Kusociński (1907 - 1940)

With an HPI of 51.94, Janusz Kusociński is the 6th most famous Polish Athlete. His biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Janusz Tadeusz Kusociński (15 January 1907 – 21 June 1940) was a Polish athlete, winner in the 10,000 meters event at the 1932 Summer Olympics.

7. Gerhard Stöck (1911 - 1985)

With an HPI of 48.95, Gerhard Stöck is the 7th most famous Polish Athlete. His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Gerhard Karl Eduard Stöck (28 July 1911 – 29 March 1985) was a German athlete. He won the gold medal in the javelin throw event at the 1936 Summer Olympics and placed third in the shot put. Stöck was the son of a butcher. He was born in Kaiserswalde in 1911, a small village now located in Poland, and grew up in the Province of Posen. He was a versatile athlete and, besides throwing events, competed in decathlon and won the javelin and pentathlon events at the 1935 World Student Games. Domestically, he won the German javelin title in 1938 and placed second in 1933–1947. He never won the German shot put title, due to a strong competition from Hans Woellke, and placed second four times. At the 1938 European Championships, Stöck won a silver medal in the shot put, surprisingly beating Woellke, but placed only seventh in the javelin throw. Stöck had a degree in philology and, since 1938, worked as a teacher. Earlier in 1933, he became a member of the Nazi paramilitary organization, Sturmabteilung, and, in 1944, was promoted to Sturmbannführer. After World War II, he continued competing until the early 1950s and then worked as a sports administrator. He served as Chef de Mission of the Unified German Olympic team in 1956 and 1960 and as deputy chef de mission in 1964. His past military activity was raised only after his death in 1985. Among other things, it was found that he falsified his birth year from 1911 to 1910. Stöck was married and raised an athletic family. His daughter, Jutta Stöck, became an Olympic sprinter, while his son-in-law, Peter Hertel, was a 1966 world champion in rowing. His grandson, Ole Hertel, was a competitive shot putter and discus thrower. In the lead up to Operation Uranus, Stöck was the one who reported an expected Soviet attack that day to General Schmidt's division, this attack was the first of the operation. The message was not passed on to Schmidt however as it was thought to be another false alarm. This lack of early response is thought to have contributed to the Soviet success of Operation Uranus.

8. Zbigniew Pietrzykowski (1934 - 2014)

With an HPI of 48.72, Zbigniew Pietrzykowski is the 8th most famous Polish Athlete. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Zbigniew Jan Pietrzykowski (4 October 1934 – 19 May 2014) was a Polish boxer. He took part in three Olympic Games, each time winning a medal. He won a bronze medal at Melbourne 1956 in the light middleweight division, after losing in the semi-final to Hungarian László Papp. Four years later in Rome, he reached the final of the light heavyweight division, where he lost to Cassius Clay, who was 7 years younger. Finally, he won a bronze medal in Tokyo in 1964, in the light heavyweight division (defeated by Soviet Aleksei Kiselyov). He participated five times at the European Amateur Boxing Championships and won five medals: a bronze in the light middleweight division in Warsaw 1953, and then four gold medals: in West Berlin (1955) in the light middleweight division, in Prague (1957) in the middleweight division, in Lucerne (1959), and in Moscow (1963) in the light heavyweight division. He won the championship of Poland 11 times: in the light middleweight division in 1954, 1955 and 1956, in the middleweight division in 1957 and in the light heavyweight division in 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1965. Pietrzykowski was also a champion in relation to his performances in the national Polish team fighting 44 bouts, winning 42 of them and losing twice. In his career, he fought 350 bouts winning 334 of them, drawing 2 and losing 14. Pietrzykowski was the first winner of the Aleksander Reksza Boxing Award in 1986.

9. Elżbieta Krzesińska (1934 - 2015)

With an HPI of 48.68, Elżbieta Krzesińska is the 9th most famous Polish Athlete. Her biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Elżbieta Maria Krzesińska (née Duńska; November 11, 1934 – December 29, 2015) was a track and field athlete from Poland, who competed in the long jump. Born in Warsaw, she competed for her native country at the 1956 Summer Olympics held in Melbourne, Australia where she won the gold medal in the Women's Long Jump. She returned to the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome but failed to defend her title, finishing second behind Soviet Vera Krepkina. She won the Polish championships in Long Jump (1952, 1953, 1954, 1957, 1959, 1962, 1963), 80m Hurdles (1957), and Pentathlon (1953, 1962). Duńska-Krzesińska participated in three Olympic Games. In 1952, she took 12th place in long jump at the 15th Olympic Games in Helsinki. In 1956, she won gold medal at the 16th Olympic Games in Melbourne. In 1960, she won silver medal, behind Vera Krepkina, at the 17th Olympic Games in Rome. In 1954, she took 3rd, behind Jean Desforges, and Aleksandra Chudina, at the 5th European Championships in Athletics in Bern. In 1954, she won both in long jump and pentathlon at World Student Games in Budapest. In August 1956, she broke the world record in long jump (6.35) in Budapest, and equal in November 1956 in the Melbourne Olympics. In 1959, she won at the 1st Universiade in Turin. In 1962, she took 2nd, behind Tatyana Shchelkanova, at the 7th European Athletics Championships in Belgrade. She lived in the United States of America from 1981 until 2000, then she came back to Poland. She died on 29 December 2015 after long illness.

10. Ursula Happe (1926 - 2021)

With an HPI of 48.55, Ursula Happe is the 10th most famous Polish Athlete. Her biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Ursula Happe (German pronunciation: [ˈʊʁzula ˈhapə] ; 20 October 1926 – 26 March 2021) was a German swimmer and Olympic champion. She competed at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, where she won the gold medal in 200 m breaststroke. She also competed in the women's 200 metre breaststroke at the 1952 Summer Olympics. Happe died in Dortmund on 26 March 2021 at the age of 94. Her son Thomas Happe is a former international handball player for West Germany.

People

Pantheon has 264 people classified as Polish athletes born between 1100 and 2003. Of these 264, 215 (81.44%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Polish athletes include Ewa Kłobukowska, Józef Szmidt, and Halina Górecka. The most famous deceased Polish athletes include Stanisława Walasiewicz, Hans Woellke, and Gustav Flatow. As of April 2024, 168 new Polish athletes have been added to Pantheon including Stanisław Kowalski, Klaus Beer, and Kazimierz Barburski.