BATMAN RETURNS
Polish ski jumper Adam Malysz is a hero in his home country, but one accolade has so far eluded him – an Olympic gold medal. Toby Skinner meets a high-flyer
As winter grips Poland, many people turn their attention to one of the more surprising of national sports: ski jumping. When the World Cup comes to Zakopane, near Wizz Air destination Krakow in southern Poland, it is an event to rival any national sporting fixture. Every year since 2001, millions have tuned in their televisions to watch their heroes soar through the cold Zakopane air. Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski never fails to turn up, a sure sign that ski jumping has captured the nation’s imagination. The sport has traditionally been a big deal in Poland. Many people say that it was a Pole, Miroslav Graf, who first performed the modern ‘V’ style of ski jumping – and Wojciech Fortuna made the sport really big by winning gold at the Winter Olympics in Sapporo in 1972. But the intense mania that has surrounded the sport since the turn of the millennium has largely been down to one man. Small and wiry, with an unfashionable moustache, Poland’s top ski jumper Adam Malysz is perhaps an unlikely national hero, but since bursting onto the scene in 2001, his face has regularly been plastered across magazine covers and television screens across the country.
PAPAL BLESSING
Malysz, who was born in Wisla near Krakow, won the first of three World Cups and two World Championships that year, and has since become the most recognised sportsman in Poland. He won Poland’s most prestigious sporting accolade – the Przeglad Sportowy newspaper award – for three consecutive years between 2001 and 2003, elevating him to megastar status in the country.
A good measure of Malysz’s huge profile is the fact that the late Pope John Paul II, himself a sportsman in Poland during his early years, often sent Malysz messages of congratulation for winning ski jumping events. EU Commission President Romano Prodi also named him as a Polish ambassador for the country’s integration into the European Union. But while it is astonishing that a sport perceived as minor in most European countries has created such a high-profile figure, Malysz feels something is missing from his career – an Olympic gold medal. In February, Malysz will head to Turin to try to seal his position among the true greats of Polish sport and to repeat the gold medal won by Fortuna in 1972. In 2002, at the Salt Lake City Olympics, Malysz won a silver and a bronze medal in the ski jumping events, but just missed out on the top spot.
‘Just after the Salt Lake City Olympics, I said that I wouldn’t change my bronze and silver medal for one gold,’ says the man who has been nicknamed ‘the Polish Batman’. ‘But after that, I thought about it, and today I would change my two medals for one gold. Olympic gold is something special and beautiful and I want to have it in my collection.
‘The Winter Olympics is unique, and everything I do this season is focused on winning a gold medal there. I believe I can do it.’
If Malysz can win gold at Turin, it will mark
something of a comeback after a difficult few
years in which injuries have marred the form
that saw him completely dominate the sport
between 2000 and 2003.
In 2004, during training for a World Cup event in Salt Lake City, Malysz had an accident that threatened his season and, many say, triggered a loss of form. ‘It was one of the worst moments in my life,’ says Malysz of the day he came crashing down to earth. ‘I can’t remember it. I woke up in an ambulance and realised what had happened - I was devastated.’
MEDIA SPOTLIGHT
After the accident, in which he suff ered severe concussion, Malysz had to sit out most of the season and ended up finishing 12th in the World Cup standings and 15th in the Four Hills Championship. For most ski jumpers this was acceptable, but for Poland’s most famous sportsman it was difficult to take. Then, in March 2005, after another poor season by his own high standards, Malysz was reported to be ready to quit the sport altogether. He wanted the Polish Ski Federation to extend his manager Eddie Federer’s lucrative deal, and was angry when the organisation failed to meet his demands. Malysz regrets the way the aff air was interpreted by the media, who have never lost the taste for the latest Malysz story. ‘I don’t like to be associated with that kind of aff air,’ he insists. ‘But of course it is hard to get away from it when this matter is so connected to you.
‘The thing is that the media interpreted my words wrongly. They said that if the Polish Ski Association failed to sign a new contract with Federer, I would retire. For me it was unfair because I didn’t mean this – if I was going to retire, there’s no way I would do it before Turin.’ While the Polish press seemed keen to paint Malysz as a money-grabber, he says he was just protecting a friend, who also controls his lucrative image rights. ‘I like Eddie. I had to defend him because a good business relationship with him means benefits for me, and I think the Polish Ski Federation were acting unfairly.’
Others, who believed Malysz was set to retire, said the superstar’s loss of form had played a part, as he had not stood on a World Cup podium since his home event in Zakopane in January last year. He ended up winning four competitions last season, but Finn Janne Ahonen stole the show by winning half of the season’s events.
But this supposed loss of form, which saw him finish a respectable fourth in both the World Cup and Four Hills Championships last year, has only spurred Malysz on to prove the critics wrong when the Olympics come around, and he says he has been training harder than ever. ‘As a little boy I didn’t even dream about World Cup or Olympic medals,’ he says. ‘But now it’s within touching distance and I want it badly. I want to sit in my chair and think that I have achieved everything there is to achieve in my sport. Now I realise I have achieved almost everything, but not quite.’
BATMAN VISSZATÉR
Az alacsony, mokány, kissé divatjamúlt bajuszt viselő Adam Malysz a legjobb lengyel síugró. Kissé furcsának tűnhet a nemzeti hős szerepében, ám mióta 2001-ben berobbant a köztudatba, gyakran tűnik föl országszerte magazinok címlapján vagy a televízió képernyőjén.
2001-ben Malysz nyerte meg a három világkupa közül az elsőt, ezen felül két világbajnokságot, s azóta Lengyelország közismert sportolójává vált. Februárban Torinóban szerepel majd, hogy örökre biztosítsa helyét a lengyel sport nagyjai között. 2002- ben, az olimpián Salt Lake City-ben a síugró számokban ezüst- és bronzérmes lett, hajszállal csúszva le a dobogó legfelső fokáról.
A Salt Lake City-beli olimpia után azt mondtam, hogy a bronz- és aranyérmemet nem cserélném el egy aranyra – mondja „lengyel Batmanként” ismert férfi. – Később azonban meggondoltam magam, és ma már elcserélném a kettőt egy aranyra. Az olimpiai arany különleges és nagyon szép. Szeretnék egyet a gyűjteményembe.
Kisfiúként még álmomban sem gondoltam világkupákra meg olimpiai helyezésekre – mondja, – de most mindez elérhető közelségbe került, és én nagyon szeretném megszerezni. Szeretném, hogy visszanézve úgy érezhessem, minden elértem, amit ezen a sporton belül el lehet érni.
POWRÓT BATMANA
Mały i zwinny, z niemodnymi wąsami. Czołowy polski skoczek narciarski - Adam Małysz – nie wygląda może na narodowego bohatera. Jednak od czasu, kiedy niespodziewanie zabłysnął na sportowej arenie, jego twarz nieustannie pojawia się na ekranach telewizyjnych i okładkach magazynów. W 2001 r. zdobył Kryształową Kulę Pucharu Świata oraz złoty i srebrny medal na Mistrzostwach Świata. Stał się najpopularniejszym sportowcem w kraju. W lutym pojechał do Turynu, aby tam utwierdzić swoją pozycję. Podczas Igrzysk Olimpijskich w Salt Lake City w 2002 r. wywalczył srebro i brąz. Jednak pierwszego miejsca nie udało mu się zdobyć. „Zaraz po olimpiadzie w Salt Lake City powiedziałem, że nie zamieniłbym swoich dwóch medali, srebrnego i brązowego, na jeden złoty”, powiedział „polski Batman”. „Ale dzisiaj już myślę inaczej. Olimpijskie złoto to coś szczególnego i chcę je mieć w swojej kolekcji”. „Jako młody chłopak nawet nie marzyłem o Pucharze Świata ani o medalach olimpijskch”, mówi. „Ale teraz, kiedy to wszystko jest na wyciągnięcie ręki, bardzo tego pragnę. Chciałbym móc spojrzeć wstecz i powiedzieć, że zdobyłem wszystko, co było możliwe do osiągnięcia w mojej dyscyplinie”.
