Warsaw, Poland, January 12, 2015. Mariusz Wlazly finished in second place the 80th edition of the poll organised to vote for Poland’s Athlete of the Year 2014. The PGE Skra BELCHATOW opposite, who was the main force leading the red and white team to a historic home gold at the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship Poland 2014, was edged only by double Olympic champion, ski jumper Kamil Stoch, with one of the slightest margins in the history of the oldest voting of that kind in Poland and one of the most traditional ones in Europe.
The ‘Sportsman of the Year’ poll has been hosted for 80 years by the daily newspaper Przeglad Sportowy and by the national television TVP with the announcement of the eventual winner being broadcast live on Saturday night. The millions of viewers and couple of hundreds of guests in attendance could follow the presentation of the awards to Poland’s best sportsmen of the year 2014. The fans, who could vote via SMS until the very last moment or by using coupons published by Przeglad Sportowy, had a really difficult task this year – even some of the Olympic medallists from Sochi 2014 were unable to make it to the top 10 who received the much coveted statues awarded by the organisers.
When two gold medallists from Sochi 2014, speed skater Zbigniew Brodka and cross country skier Justyna Kowalczyk did not make the podium and road cycling world champion Michal Kwiatkowski ended up in third place, it was clear that the eventual winner would be Wlazly or Kamil Stoch. Finally the double Olympic champion in ski jumping was voted the best, scoring a record 716,622 points, while the PGE Skra opposite finished in second place with 706,774. Kwiatkowski’s score was 396,332.
“It was one of the closest contests in history. The advantage of Stoch and Wlazly was enormous,” stated Przeglad Sportowy chief editor Michal Pol.
“It is a great achievement to get the second place in the heart of the Polish fans,” summed up Wlazly, who received the trophy for the second placed athlete in the poll from his mentor on the national team, Stéphane Antiga.
“Volleyball is a team sport, however a single player may trigger the team to step up,” said the French coach of the Polish national team, who was also voted by a panel of experts ‘Coach of the Year 2014’ ex aequo with Lukasz Kruczek, the mentor of the ski jumping national team.
The MVP from the FIVB Volleyball Men’s World Championship Poland 2014, Mariusz Wlazly, and coach Stéphane Antiga (also a former player of PGE Skra) were not the only players or former players from Belchatow in attendance at the gala. The Polish Volleyball national team was awarded the ‘Team of the Year’ trophy, with the trophy received by Michal Winiarski from PGE Skra. Karol Klos, Andrzej Wrona, and the former libero of PGE Skra Pawel Zatorski were other members of that already legendary Polish team who attended the awards ceremony.
The gala in Warsaw ended as usual at around 7am, however the PGE Skra players were forced to leave a couple of hours earlier as they had to face Politechnika WARSZAWSKA in a PlusLiga match on schedule for Sunday.
“I wish all the players a very good and very long party. Guys, you deserve it,” stated Politechnika coach Jakub Bednaruk via Twitter on Saturday. The next day PGE Skra was nevertheless able to impose their rule claiming the match with Politechnika in three sets and with Michal Winiarski taking the honour of the MVP in the end.