Page 125 - Olympism in Socialism

winter events: the Zloty Kiazek (Golden Puck) in
ice-hockey and the Blekitna Sztafeta (Blue Relay)
in skating. The best Polish athlete, Irena
Kirszenstein-Szenwinska, started her sports
career in the Swiat Mlodych event, as did Daniela
Jaworska and Ewa Gryziecka, both javelin
throwers, and Teresa Sukniewicz, ex-world
record holder in the 100-metre hurdles.
Today pupils from primary schools take part
in sports events known as the National School
Sports Games or the National Youth Spartakiad.
The first qualifying stages are at the school level,
followed by national finals. The programme
includes all sports events in which children of
that age can participate. For some years now,
similar games have been organised for pupils and
students of vocational schools. It can be said
without exaggeration that all school pupils
actively participate in the physical education
programme although not all of them are members
of the School Sports Circles (SKS) of which there
are some 15,200 with a membership of 836,000.
Another mass sports organization in Poland is
the LZS (Popular Sports Association) which was
founded on the initiative of the few sportsmen of
peasant origin who managed to make it to the
Polish national squad in the pre-war years.
Among these were the athletes Kazimierz
Maciukiewicz and Eugeniusz Strzalkowski and
the fencer Franciszek Saban. In 1948 in
Przemysl, Saban helped to found the LZS
Zurawica club which virtually represented young
sportsmen from the countryside. In 1950, the
women’s team from the LZS Zurawica won the
vice-championship of Poland in athletics.
After this initial success the instructors
raised in Przemysl started to set up clubs
throughout the country. By 1951, national

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