Ewa Nikola Swoboda (; born 26 July 1997)
. Nanjing2014. Retrieved on 11 March 2015. is a Polish

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

sprinter who specialises in the short sprints. She is a World Indoor Championships silver medallist, two-time

European Championships A European Championship is the top level international sports competition between European athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. In the plural, the European Championships also refers t ...

silver medallist,

European Indoor Championships The European Indoor Championships was a men's tennis tournament played in Berlin, Germany. The event was played as part of the ATP Tour in 1990 and 1991. It was played on indoor carpet court A carpet court is a type of tennis court. The Intern ...

gold and two-time silver medallist, and

European Games The European Games is a continental multi-sport event in the Olympic tradition contested by athletes from countries served by national Olympic committees within the European Olympic Committees (EOC), the regional association for such committ ...

gold and silver medallist. Swoboda is a two-time Olympian and competed at the

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

and

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Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, then part of the King ...

. Swoboda is also a two-time European U23 champion, World Junior Championships silver medallist and European junior champion. At age 17, she was a finalist in the

60 metres 60 metres, or 60-meter dash, is a sprint event in track and field. It is a championship event for indoor championships, normally dominated by the best outdoor 100 metres runners. At indoor events, the 60 metres is run on lanes set out in the mi ...

in her senior debut at the 2015 European Indoor Championships and won the gold medal in the

100 metres The 100 metres, or 100-meter dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, the dash is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been contested at ...

at the 2015 European Junior Championships, before taking the silver medal at the 2016 World Junior Championships in the same event. She won the 100 metres event at the European U23 Championships in

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and

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. Swoboda holds the world junior record of 7.07 seconds and the Polish record of 6.98 seconds in the 60 metres. She is a multiple medallist of national outdoor and indoor championships.

Life and career

Career beginnings

Swoboda started competing in

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competitio ...

from a young age and after joining the UKS Czwórka Żory athletics club, she began training under her coach Iwona Krupa. She won the Polish youth titles in the

in 2011 and 2012. The following year she won the national indoor junior

200 metres The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400-metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slight ...

race.Ewa Swoboda
Domtel Sport. Retrieved on 11 March 2015. Her international debut came at the 2013 World Youth Championships in Athletics where she placed fourth in the girls' 100 m with a run of 11.61 seconds; finishing as the best European in the race. Following the event, she ran a personal best and set a new Polish junior record of 11.54 seconds in the 100 m at the Polish Youth Olympic Days, where she completed a sprint double. At the start of 2014, Swoboda claimed the Polish indoor junior title in the

. Outdoors, at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Athletics she was fifth in the 100 m, and failed to finish in the 200 m. At the European Youth Olympic Trials in

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, she won the 100 m and was runner-up in the 200 m. Swoboda was one of the favourites for the 2014 Youth Olympics in the girls' 100 m, where she ran a new best of 11.30 seconds in her opening race – making her the second fastest junior athlete that year. However, she was disqualified in the 100 m final for a

false start In sports, a false start is a disallowed start, usually due to a movement by a participant before (or in some cases after) being signaled or otherwise permitted by the rules to start. Depending on the sport and the event, a false start can resu ...

in the midst of crowd noise.

Senior career

Swoboda won her first senior national title at the 2015 Polish Indoor Championships and she also set a

European junior record of 7.21 seconds during the competition, which was also a world best for a seventeen-year-old. This gained her selection for the

2015 European Athletics Indoor Championships The 2015 European Athletics Indoor Championships were held from 5 to 8 March 2015 in the O2 Arena (Prague), O2 Arena in Prague, Czech Republic. Bidding process Prague was chosen as the host of the Championships on the European Athletics council ...

– her first senior appearance for Poland. Still aged seventeen, she made the final of the 60 m and ran another personal best of 7.20 seconds, improving her European junior record by 0.01 seconds. This was the joint fastest time achieved by a Polish woman in the competition's history – matching that of Irena Szewińska and Daria Korczyńska (both of whom were medallists). Swoboda competed in the 100 metres event at the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events i ...

, where she reached the semifinals. In March 2018 it was announced that Swoboda would be upgraded to silver medalist at the 2017 European Indoor Championship, after Ukraine's Olesya Povh's was disqualified for the use of unauthorized substances. She was unable to participate at the 2021 European Athletics Indoor Championships in

Toruń Toruń is a city on the Vistula River in north-central Poland and a World Heritage Sites of Poland, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its population was 196,935 as of December 2021. Previously, it was the capital of the Toruń Voivodeship (1975–199 ...

after testing positive to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

shortly before the start of the championships. Swoboda also did not compete at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics due to injury. On 11 February 2022, she broke the Polish national record in the 60 meters twice at the Orlen Cup meeting in

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

and set a new one by achieving 7.00 seconds. On 5 March, she broke the record again at the Polish Indoor Championships in

with a time of 6.99 seconds, which was the tenth best result in the history of the competition. She placed fourth at the 2022 World Indoor Championships held in

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in a time of 7.04 seconds. The same time was measured for the fifth and sixth woman while Swoboda lost the bronze medal by 0.002 s. At the

Diamond League The Diamond League is an annual series of elite track and field athletic competitions comprising fifteen invitational athletics meetings. The series sits in the top tier of the World Athletics one-day meet competitions. The inaugural season was ...

meeting at the

Silesian Stadium The Silesian Stadium (; Polish: ) is a sport stadium located on the premises of Silesian Park in Chorzów, Poland. The stadium has a fully covered capacity of 54,378, after refurbishment completed in October 2017. The stadium hosted many Poland ...

in Chorzów on 16 July 2023, she ran her first sub-11 second 100 m, as she placed third in a personal best of 10.94 seconds, just 0.01 adrift of Ewa Kasprzyk's Polish national record set in 1986. At the

2023 World Athletics Championships The 2023 World Athletics Championships (), the nineteenth edition of the World Athletics Championships, were held from 19 to 27 August 2023 at the National Athletics Centre (Budapest), National Athletics Centre, in Budapest, Hungary. The tourna ...

she claimed sixth place in the Women's 100 metres achieving 10.97 seconds, the fastest result by a European woman. In March 2024, Swoboda participated in the women's 60 meters at the

World Athletics Indoor Championships The World Athletics Indoor Championships are a biennial indoor track and field competition served as the global championship for that version of the sport. Organised by the World Athletics, the competition was inaugurated as the ''World Indoor G ...

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. In the semifinals, she improved her personal best record and set a new national record by achieving 6.98 seconds. In the final, she won the silver medal by finishing in a time of 7.00 seconds, thus claiming her first medal at the World Indoor Championships event. In June 2024, Swoboda won silver medal in the women's 100 meters event at the

in Rome by achieving 11.03 seconds losing only to Dina Asher-Smith of Great Britain. At the

2024 Summer Olympics The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...

, she reached the semifinals in the 100 meters event, but failed to make the final after falling short of 0.01 seconds to qualify.

Personal life

She was in a relationship with Polish shot putter Konrad Bukowiecki. As of 2023, she was in a relationship with Polish athlete Krzysztof Kiljan. In one of interviews, she admitted that in the past she was the target of

hate speech Hate speech is a term with varied meaning and has no single, consistent definition. It is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as ...

and at one point started thinking about quitting the sport. She is a tattoo enthusiast. Her tattoos include a rose, cat and an inscription "Mom and dad, I love you" written in English.

Achievements

Personal bests

– 10.94 (+0.2 m/s Diamond League - Chorzów 2023) ** 100 metres U20 – 11.12 (+0.9 m/s

Bydgoszcz Bydgoszcz is a city in northern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Kuyavia. Straddling the confluence of the Vistula River and its bank (geography), left-bank tributary, the Brda (river), Brda, the strategic location of Byd ...

2016) ** 100 metres U18 – 11.30 (0.0 m/s

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2014) *

– 23.79 (+0.3 m/s) (

Linz Linz (Pronunciation: , ; ) is the capital of Upper Austria and List of cities and towns in Austria, third-largest city in Austria. Located on the river Danube, the city is in the far north of Austria, south of the border with the Czech Repub ...

2018) ;Indoor *

– 6.98 (

2024) ** 60 metres U20 – 7.07 (

2016) *

– 24.55 (

Spała Spała is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Inowłódz, within Tomaszów Mazowiecki County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It lies on the Pilica River, approximately west of Inowłódz, east of Tomaszów Mazowiecki, and ...

2014)

International competitions

¹Did not finish in the final

National titles

* Polish Athletics Championships **

(8): 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 ** 4 × 100 m relay (1): 2020 * Polish Indoor Athletics Championships **

(8): 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

Honours and accolades

*Medal of the 100th Anniversary of Regaining Independence (2019) *Barbie Role Model doll created by

Mattel Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company headquartered in El Segundo, California. Founded in Los Angeles by Harold Matson and the husband-and-wife duo of Ruth Handler, ...

(2024)

References

External links

* * *
Ewa Swoboda
at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics * *
Ewa Swoboda
at the ''Polski Związek Lekkiej Atletyki'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Swoboda, Ewa 1997 births Living people 21st-century Polish sportswomen Athletes (track and field) at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2023 European Games Athletes (track and field) at the 2024 Summer Olympics Athletes from Silesian Voivodeship European Athletics Championships medalists European Athletics Indoor Championships winners European Games gold medalists for Poland European Games medalists in athletics European Games silver medalists for Poland Olympic athletes for Poland Olympic female sprinters People from Żory Polish Athletics Championships winners Polish female sprinters