Wojtek Czyz
Wojtek Czyz (actually Wojciech Czyż; born July 30, 1980 in Wodzisław Slaski ) is a German track and field athlete of Polish origin.
Life
Sporting career
Czyz was faced with a career as a football player at the regional league (then the third game nationwide class level ) SC Fortuna Köln. Four days after his local successful trial he retired on 15 September 2001 in a match against SV Niederauerbach, the last game for his previous club VfR green city, in a collision with the keeper made a serious injury on his left knee and suffered compartment syndrome. After a chain of medical errors and misjudgments his left leg was on 23 September at the University Hospital of Saarland in Homburg amputated above the knee. He is therefore regarded as transfemoral amputees.
In the near Augsburg, he then completed a successful rehab. Motivated and supervised, he was, among others, from working at the clinic as a therapist Roberto Simonazzi, also a former amputee athletes, who won at the Summer Paralympics 1988 and 1992, a total of five medals. Very soon found Czyz successful entry into the disability sport and starts since then in the classification group T42 and F42, the T and F for the English names of track: (: field en. ) are ( en. career) and field. Just ten months after the accident on the football field in 2002 he was already German champion in the 100 - meter dash and the long jump and placed it in both disciplines new German records.
Nevertheless, he traveled in September 2004 in his own words as " nobody", so as on the international stage blank slate, after successful qualification to Summer Paralympics in the Greek capital Athens. With three gold medals in the 100 and 200 meters and the long jump he has achieved remarkable successes surprise and moved so immediately into the public eye. In the following years, Czyz recorded numerous wins in all major international competitions. Both at the European Championships 2005 in Espoo and in the 2006 World Championships in Assen, he secured the title again triple. Finally, he won in September 2007 at the renowned and prestigious IWAS World Games (then World Wheelchair and Amputee Games called ) in Taipei the gold medal in the long jump. For this he handed at five transgressions a safety jump on 5.88 m, because it was necessary to be careful in terms of the Paralympic Summer Games in Beijing in 2008, not to jump too far. To establish equality there, a points system based on inputs. The better he was thus in Bangalore, the more he would have to jump in Beijing for a high success score. Ralf Otto, Head of Athletics in the German Disabled Sports Association, expressed his opinion in this regard, that this idea of competitive sport creates a " farce without end " is.
The subsequent preparation for the Paralympic Summer Games 2008 was not optimal. Czyz pulled a fatigue break of metatarsal to, underwent two operations on his leg stump and on the jaw and also still suffering from glandular fever. He therefore decided to forgo his starts in the running disciplines, in order to concentrate on the long jump. This was held for the first time together in a set with the transtibial amputee class ( T44 ) competition and Czyz actually managed to defend the title. Already in the first attempt, he improved his own world record by 27 centimeters to 6.50 meters.
The next four years - Czyz was now one of Germany's most famous disabled athletes - were marked by a total of six titles at the next two sweeps of the IWAS World Games, 2009 in Bangalore and in 2011 in Sharjah. In India, it is a triumph over 200 meters was only denied because of a technical defect: the output of the curve when he lost a lead of 15 meters his prosthesis. Due to the warm temperatures and the long wait for the start they had so heated that the material was too soft and did not withstand the centrifugal forces. However, he won the first time with the German 4 x 100 - meter relay. As part of this he wanted to run even with his third Paralympic Summer Games, London 2012. Overall, he thus approached in four disciplines. The long jump competition he finished with a width of 6.33 m and 1.02 m thus behind the new Olympic, T44 - starter Markus Rehm. In the sprint over 200 meters, it was enough, however, only to a fifth place - it was Czyz first Paralympic competition without a medal placing at all and he commented on it with "It went just shitty". At the finals in the 100 meters Czyz was a season best of 12.52 s third and thus won the bronze medal. With a total of seven Paralympic medals he is one of the most successful German disabled athletes of all time.
Private
Czyz emigrated in 1988 at the age of eight years after Germany and moved to his living in Kaiserslautern father, who had been separated from his wife. At this university Heinrich-Heine -Gymnasium in 1999 he put his Abitur and enrolled three years later in 2002 at the German Sports University in Cologne. There he also studied currently (as of March 2012) yet. In addition, he is active in Koblenz as a clerk at the Lotto Rheinland - Pfalz GmbH.
He is good friends with the football player Miroslav Klose, with whom he also shares the same athletic advisors. 7 August 2010 Czyz took part in the charity game of Fitness First Winter Sports Stars against Bayern Munich in part, and the final score of 11:1 scored the only goal against the pros.
Bests
Awards
- 2004: Silver bay leaf
- 2004: German Disabled Athlete of the Year