Thursday, Sep. 30, 2004

Heart of Gold

By JEFF CHU | Athens

When Otylia Jedrzejczak stepped onto the starting blocks for the women's 100-m butterfly final in Athens, Poland hadn't yet won a medal at the Summer Games. Less than a minute later, it had a silver, as Jedrzejczak finished second to Australia's Petria Thomas. Less than an hour later, it had another, as Jedrzejczak won silver in the 400-m freestyle, behind France's Laure Manaudou. Two finals, two silvers — and she was just warming up.

Jedrzejczak's big race, the 200-m butterfly, came three nights later. Though she's the world-record holder in the event, it was swimmers from powerhouses Australia and the U.S. who were getting most of the media hype at this meet. "It was good everybody else got all the attention," she says. Her own expectations were enough. "There was so much pressure for me, but it was my own. When I tell myself, I have to win, then I go to the start and I'm afraid. But I wanted to have the one medal, in the 200-m fly, because that's my race."

She had nothing to fear. In the first half of the 200 m, Jedrzejczak trailed Australia's Thomas by almost a second. But then she unleashed "my secret weapon, my second 100 m." Her long arms whipping through the water, she powered through the second half of the race in 64.96 sec., 1.22 sec. faster than anyone else — faster even than when she set her world record two years ago. Her time of 2 min. 6.05 sec. was her best of the year and good enough for gold, Poland's first ever in the Olympic pool.

The win made Jedrzejczak, 20, a national hero. Her countrymen renamed this Olimpiada — Polish for Olympics — the Otyliada, and thousands poured into the streets to welcome her home to Ruda Slaska, a coal-mining town in southern Poland. But for Jedrzejczak, a medal isn't as important as the good it can bring. Earlier this year, she read a novella by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt called Oscar and the Lady in Pink, about a 10-year-old boy dying of leukemia, who, encouraged by a hospital volunteer, writes letters to God about his experiences. The tale inspired Jedrzejczak. "Before my first start, I told my friends, If I win [a gold medal], I'll sell it for the children," says Jedrzejczak, whose own hero is Pope John Paul II. So in a few months — perhaps on her birthday, Dec. 13, if everything can be organized in time — she'll auction off her gold medal to benefit children like Oscar. She hopes to get donations from other athletes, too. People have questioned her decision: Doesn't she want the medal to show her grandchildren? Won't she regret not having this souvenir of her historic win? "I don't need the medal to remember," she says. "I know I'm the Olympic champion. That's in my heart." Of gold.