Born: 4 November 1982, Warsaw, Poland
Died: 18 February 2009, Vila Real de Santo António, Portugal
Early days Skolimowska first made herself known at age fifteen, when she won the hammer throw event at the 1997 European Junior Championships; the first time hammer throw was staged at the European Junior Championships. She was actually fourteen years and 264 days at the time, and had become Polish national champion and record holder the year before.
Career. Her personal best in 1997 was 63.48 metres. She improved her personal best to 66.62 metres in 1999. She also finished seventh at the 1998 European Championships, won the 1999 World Youth Championships and finished twenty-first at the 1999 World Championships. At the 2000 Summer Olympics she won a gold medal in the hammer throw, with a new personal best throw of 71.16 metres. She won the gold medal after favorite Mihaela Melinte was disqualified for failing a drugs test. At age 17 years and 331 days, Skolimowska became the youngest Olympic hammer champion. As it was the first time that the women's hammer throw was staged at the Olympics, she also set an Olympic record, which stood for four years. She received the Polish Golden Cross of Merit for her achievement. In the 2001 season, she finished fourth at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton, with a throw of 68.05 metres. One month later she improved her national record to 71.71 metres, which was enough to win the IAAF Grand Prix Final in Melbourne. In 2002 she took her first championships medal since the Olympic victory, at the 2002 European Championships. Throwing 72.46 metres to take the silver medal, she almost improved on her 72.60 result achieved in June in Bydgoszcz. In the final round of the hammer throw at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens she recorded a season best of 72.57 metres, placing fifth overall in the event. She again finished fifth at the 2004 World Athletics Final. In July 2005 Skolimowska improved her national record to 74.27 metres, the result being achieved in Madrid. Exactly one month later she won the gold medal at the Universiade, four days after finishing seventh at the 2005 World Championships. At the 2005 World Athletics Final she finished second. In 2006 Skolimowska improved her national record again; to 75.29 as she won the 2006 World Cup meet in September in Athens. The record crowned a successful year, with a bronze medal at the 2006 European Championships and a second place at the 2006 World Athletics Final earlier in the season. In 2007 Skolimowska improved with more than a meter, throwing 76.83 in May at the Super Grand Prix meet in Doha. She finished fourth at both the 2007 World Championships and the 2007 World Athletics Final. Skolimowska died unexpectedly at the age of 26 during a training session in Portugal. The cause of her death was confirmed by autopsy to be pulmonary embolism. Concerns were raised that the problem could have been detected earlier if a doctor had been accompanying the team.
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This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Kamila Skolimowska." Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
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