Coach of UKS “Orientpark.pl” Iwiny Dariusz Pachnik:
The terrain of the Upland—strewn with rocks and stones, with fairly large areas of forest, difficult running conditions and considerable elevation changes—was very demanding. The straight-line distance for the men’s elite category was 21.6 km with 955 m of elevation gain. The expected winning times in the individual categories were very close to marathon results. Suffice it to say that the best senior, Michał Olejnik of WKS “Grunwald” Poznań, who has a road 5 km time well under 15 minutes, won yesterday with a time of 139 minutes and 35 seconds.
Naturally, the distances for juniors and veterans were shorter, but the winning times in all categories exceeded 100 minutes.
And he adds:
Our athletes played significant roles in the junior men’s categories. Stanisław Pachnik, after a very fierce battle, had to concede superiority this time to his most dangerous rival, Stanisław Kurzyp of WKS “Śląsk” Wrocław, but defeated Ignacy Słomczyński of UKS “Orientuś” Łódź in the final stretch. In this way, he won his fifth Polish Championship medal this year—three gold and two silver!!!
Only our “Stachu” was able to compete for gold medals with his namesake, Stanisław Kurzyp, this season. These two athletes shared all the individual championship titles between them!!! Staszek Pachnik won the classic-distance and sprint events—the latter of which Kurzyp is the reigning European champion in—while his rival from Wrocław won the middle-distance, night and now ultralong events. Stasiu will compete in the M18 junior category for another year, while his rival and friend is moving up to the older junior category, M20.
That was not the end of the good news, however. D. Pachnik:
Stasiu’s younger brother, Jędrzej Pachnik, made a fantastic debut at the official Polish Championships. Dżej-dżej, as his teammates call him, is still a youth competitor and therefore cannot officially compete in the younger junior category, where points are awarded in the Youth Sports System. He had already competed outside the classification at the Polish Championships in the middle-distance event and defeated everyone who started there!!! Had it not been for this rule, he could have celebrated a medal then already.
Still, better late than never. The long-distance Polish Championships are excluded from the Youth Sports System scoring, so Jędrek officially competed alongside his older teammates. The race was highly exciting: Wiktor Muller of UMKS Kwidzyn was first to reach the so-called refreshment point, and about four minutes later a pair of athletes arrived: Stanisław Wołek of UNTS Warszawa and… Jędrek.
Unfortunately, he fell among the rocks during the race and destroyed his compass. However, he managed to obtain a compass from an older teammate from WKS “Śląsk” Wrocław, Mikołaj Krawczyński (many thanks!!!). Dżej-dżej returned to the competition almost immediately and set off after his escaping teammate. The pursuit was successful. In the final stages, Jędrek built up a lead of more than 30 seconds and crossed the finish line in second place, winning his first official Polish Championship medal.
The coach adds:
We had one more UKS “Orientpark.pl” Iwiny representative in the younger junior category, also a youth competitor, Gracjan Dwojak, who finished the race in a respectable 11th place.