Jakub Szymański was seventh in his qualifying race in the 110 m hurdles, penultimate. With a very poor time of 13.75 s. That is, worse than the Polish record by half a second. This record – 13.25 s – belongs to him and Czykier. The latter started his starts even worse in Paris – with a time of 13.99 s he was last in his series. Krzysztof Kiljan was also last in his race (13.67 s).
Szymański said later that he didn't know what had happened, that at some point the power had been cut off and that he had to think it all over. “I'm glad that there are repechages,” Kiljan told journalists. And the oldest of our so far defeated hurdlers said directly: “There's no point in expecting them to save anything.”
“When I'm healthy, I blow everyone away”
– The injury meant that I couldn't train to the max. And that's why it looks like this. Did it make sense to come here? I'll put it this way: I did pretty good training in Spała. Pretty good. And we really believed that we could still do it. But after arriving here, the stress kicked in that I wasn't in my target form, and that, along with the injury, made me feel weak – said Czykier.
He tore his biceps two weeks ago. “When I'm in shape, when I'm healthy, I blow everyone away, and I don't care about the noise,” he replied to the suggestion that the 80,000 spectators at the Stade de France might have paralyzed him a bit. “The only problem is that I didn't manage to get into the shape of my life. If only I could turn back the clock two weeks and not do one training session that was unlucky…” we were told.
Czykier would like to turn back the clock by two weeks. I turned it back for him by two years
At that moment I decided to turn back the clock. Two years. And I reminded Damian how after fourth place at the World Championships in Eugene he came to us, Polish journalists, and said that now it will start, that he is not old yet (born in 1992) and that the coming years will be his.
– Damian, why aren't they? – I asked.
– They are and they are not. However, I ran 13.27 seconds this year and I was in the final at the European Championships – he replied.
– But you announced more, you talked about medals – I reminded.
– I said, and I was aiming for that medal at the European Championships. It was close, within reach, but something was missing again (Damian did not finish the final).
Is Czykier missing his health the most? – Yes, it's bothering me a bit. The biceps are my Achilles heel, I've torn them three or four times in my life, they still hurt – our hurdler complained.
They were brought together by Iga Świątek's trainer.
It's a shame that it looks like this. In preparations for these games, Czykier and Szymański joined forces. They have the same coaches – Mikołaj Justyński and Maciej Ryszczuk, who works with Iga Świątek. For a while, they even shared an apartment, they created a group.
– It was a very strong group. This year we ran 13.25 and 13.27 respectively, these are good results. All we lacked was luck to bring it well to the Games – said Czykier. – We had an apartment together, it was a project for the Games, and now we will each go our separate ways – we were told.
And what about these repechages? If there is no faith, maybe the last resort is to ask Ryszczuk to bring Iga to the stands? Maybe Iga could inspire you? – I asked. – Well, maybe so. I have good contact with Iga, she is a nice girl, her career is going great. And I hope that mine and Kuba's will also flourish – Czykier concluded.