{"id":79765,"date":"2018-06-02T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2018-06-02T12:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=79765"},"modified":"2020-05-31T14:38:52","modified_gmt":"2020-05-31T18:38:52","slug":"poking-the-bear-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=79765","title":{"rendered":"Poking the Bear: Gest Kozakiewicza"},"content":{"rendered":"

In general, Americans love sports. But Americans didn\u2019t follow the 1980 Summer Olympics particularly closely. <\/p>\n

The reason? The 1980 Summer Olympics were held in Moscow \u2013 and the US was boycotting the games due to the Soviet Union\u2019s December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. With no US Olympic Team competing, most American\u2019s weren\u2019t particularly interested in those games.<\/p>\n

In a way, that\u2019s a pity. Because that means that most Americans, including myself, missed one of the great gestures of defiance of the Cold War.<\/p>\n

Or, more precisely, two of them.<\/p>\n

. . . <\/p>\n

1980 was a rough year in Poland. At the time of the Summer Olympics, Poland \u2013 perhaps then the most restless of the Soviet Warsaw Pact nations \u2013 was in the midst of serious labor unrest. (Two months later, this labor unrest would give rise to Solidarity.) And Poland\u2019s historical distrust (many would say dislike) of Russia was showing again.<\/p>\n

Still, Poland sent a team to the Moscow Olympics that summer. And one of those on the team was a pole vaulter named Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz.<\/p>\n

Kozakiewicz had had a generally successful \u2013 but turbulent \u2013 career as a pole vaulter for the Polish national team. He\u2019d competed in the Olympics previously, in 1976; however, he\u2019d injured himself early during that competition and finished 11th. He was a former European champion, and for a time held the world record in the pole vault. But he was somewhat of a free spirit; he\u2019d been suspended repeatedly for insubordination and poor performance. <\/p>\n

Further, 1980 hadn\u2019t started particularly well for Kozakiewicz. However, the month prior to the Olympics Kozakiewicz had briefly held the world record in the pole vault. So he was definitely a threat to medal, if not win the competition in Moscow.<\/p>\n

The pole vault final was held on 30 June 1980 at Moscow’s Central Lenin Stadium. Predictably, the crowd was solidly behind the Soviet favorite, Konstantin Volkov. And the crowd\u2019s sportsmanship left much to be desired; they jeered all non-Soviet competitors in the pole vault.<\/p>\n

The crowd\u2019s behavior irritated Kozakiewicz. And as a Pole, it\u2019s likely he wasn\u2019t all that fond of Russia anyway.<\/p>\n

So he decided he\u2019d give the Soviet crowd his best \u2013 along with a piece of his mind.<\/p>\n

Kozakiewicz cleared 5.70 meters \u2013 the highest height yet cleared during the competition. He then secured the win by clearing 5.75 meters (the world record in the pole vault, set by Philippe Houvion of France just before the Olympic games began, was only 2 cm higher at 5.77 meters). <\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what made him famous.<\/p>\n

What made Kozakiewicz famous was his conduct after each of those two vaults. After clearing each of those heights, he turned to the pro-Soviet crowd and summed up his feelings (and those of many if not most of his countrymen towards the Soviet Union) with the following gesture:<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

Finally, for good measure Kozakiewicz vaulted again, clearing 5.78 meters \u2013 and setting a new world record in the pole vault. That hadn\u2019t happened at the Olympics since 1920. <\/p>\n

Predictably, the Soviets were not<\/i> amused. After the Games, the Soviet Ambassador to Poland demanded that Kozakiewicz\u2019s Olympic Medal be stripped from him due to his \u201cinsult to the Soviet people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Polish government\u2019s response was perfect \u2013 and hinted at Poland\u2019s true feelings towards Russia (and thus the Soviet Union). Poland\u2019s government refused to strip Kozakiewicz of his medal. The official response of the Polish government was that Kozakiewicz\u2019s arm gestures \u201chad been an involuntary muscle spasm caused by his exertion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crude gesture known elsewhere as the bras d\u2019honneur<\/i> (as well as by other names) became known in Poland as \u201cgest Kozakiewicza\u201d. It was viewed there as symbolizing resistance to Soviet domination of Poland.<\/p>\n

Poking the bear, indeed. (smile)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In general, Americans love sports. But Americans didn\u2019t follow the 1980 Summer Olympics particularly closely. The … Poking the Bear: Gest Kozakiewicza<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100395,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79765\/revisions\/100395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}