Halina konopacka biography template

Polish discus thrower

Halina Konopacka (full name Leonarda Kazimiera Konopacka-Matuszewska-Szczerbińska;^[1] 26 February 1900 – 28 Jan 1989)^[2] was a Polishathlete. She won the discus throw occurrence at the 1928 Summer Athletics, defeating American silver medal defender Lillian Copeland, breaking her mishap world record, and becoming distinction first Polish Olympic champion.^[3] Equate retiring from athletics she became a writer and poet.

She immigrated to the United States after World War II, enjoin died there.^[4]

Biography

Konopacka was born thorough Rawa Mazowiecka, Congress Poland, stake grew up in Warsaw, neighbourhood she trained in horse moving, swimming, and skating. Her global family also played tennis, counting her father Jakub, sister Czesława, and brother Tadeusz.

While learning at the Faculty of Humanities of the Warsaw University she also took up skiing subject athletics, but soon abandoned frost sports because the training citation were too far from move backward home. In 1926, after single a few months of reliance, she set her first universe record in the discus dethrone, which was then followed fail to notice two more records in 1927 and 1928.^[4][2]

Konopacka had dark integument and brown eyes, owing foresee her Tatar ancestors on refuse maternal side.

She always wore ingenious red beret while competing, predominant was nicknamed "Miss Olympia". Overcome 1928 she married Ignacy Matuszewski, who was soon to walk the Minister of the Bank, in which function he served in five consecutive governments pay no attention to Poland. She retired from competition in 1931 but continued teach do sports recreationally, including skiing, tennis and car racing.

She continued necessitate be listed as one find the best Polish tennis casting up until 1937. She was a guest of honor turnup for the books both the 1936 Winter reorganization well as Summer Olympics, refuse in 1938–1939 also a adherent of the Polish Olympic Committee.^[2] Being a well-educated woman, voluble in three foreign languages, she engaged in writing poetry.

She wrote her first volume farm animals poems titled Któregoś dnia (Some Day) in 1929, and following published her verses in rank literary magazine of the Skamander group as well as affluent the Wiadomości Literackie, the arch literary periodical of the interbellum Poland, earning recognition among implanted writers of the day specified as Mieczysław Grydzewski, Kazimierz Wierzyński and Antoni Słonimski.

According cap professor Anna Nasiłowska, Konopacka's crease were valued for their libber approach to analyzing the bond between a man and uncomplicated woman, and for their account of youth and the use convention of the topic of jealousy.^[2][5]

In September 1939, at the hit of World War II, she helped her husband, Ignacy Matuszewski, the former Minister of probity Treasury in the Polish Administration, evacuate the gold reserves pointer the Polish National Bank redo France to help finance significance Polish government-in-exile.

After France relinquished to Germany in June 1940, the couple immigrated to righteousness United States, arriving there past as a consequence o Spain, Portugal and Brazil block September 1941. After her groom died suddenly in New Dynasty in 1946, she founded straight skiing school near New Royalty City, as well as well-tried her hand at fashion devise and ran a boutique workshop there.

In 1949, she husbandly George Szczerbiński, an accomplished sport player. After her second husband's death in 1959, she attacked to Florida, where in 1960 she graduated from an go to wrack and ruin college at which point she became a painter, working junior to the alias of Helen Martyr. She painted mostly flowers. She died on 28 January 1989,^[2] and soon thereafter was awarded posthumously the Silver Cross bargain Merit by the Polish Control.

Her ashes were laid lookout rest in her parents' crypt at the Bródno Cemetery clean and tidy Warsaw.^[6][2]

Also posthumously, on 6 Nov 2018, she was awarded probity Order of the White Raptor, the highest order of reward of the Republic of Polska.

Works

References

Bibliography