Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Sunday, July 31, 1932. Thirteen athletes line up for the start of the 10,000-meter race; there are no heats, just one race and one medal. The Pole with number 364 on his chest is twenty-five years old, has two world records from six weeks ago, and new shoes, bought specifically for the hard American track. After twenty-five laps, he will win by 1.2 seconds, set an Olympic record, and take off those shoes immediately after crossing the finish line, because there will be blood inside. Eight years later, on June 21, 1940, the Germans will bring him from Pawiak prison to the forest near Palmiry and shoot him along with 357 other prisoners. He was thirty-three years old.
I. OŁTARZEW, PALANT, RELAY BY CHANCE
He was born on January 15, 1907, in Warsaw, the son of Klemens, a railway clerk, and Zofia née Śmiechowska. He spent his childhood in Ołtarzew near Warsaw, where his father owned a small farm. There were six siblings, and the family paid for two wars in advance: the eldest brother Zygmunt died during the First World War, probably in France, brother Tadeusz fell near Zamość in 1920, and the youngest sister died in 1929.
He didn't choose sports — first he played palant (a Polish bat-and-ball game), then football, as an attacker for the amateur team Robotniczy Klub Sportowy Sarmat. The team was weak and never won anything. In 1925, at a competition on a workers' holiday, they were short one person for the relay. He was asked to join. He ran, and they won. A year later, he started running seriously for Sarmat, in the 800 and 1500 meters.
In 1928, he graduated from the Warsaw Horticultural School on Wspólna Street and in the same year won his first Polish championship title. In 1929, he transferred from Sarmat to KS Warszawianka and remained with that club until 1939. He passed his matriculation exam extramurally only in 1937, and received his diploma from the Central Institute of Physical Education in 1938. He also managed to work as a physical education teacher, coach, and journalist — he was the editor-in-chief of "Kurier Sportowy".
II. KLUMBERG AND INTERVAL
Kusociński's first and only coach was the Estonian Aleksander Klumberg, an Olympic bronze medalist in the decathlon, who led the Polish athletics team from 1927 to 1932. Klumberg brought the Finnish school to Warsaw: strenuous morning gymnastics, afternoon running, and — something new in Poland at the time — interval training. Kusociński developed this on his own, and he is credited with developing the Polish version of interval training for long-distance running.
The method was simple and brutal: instead of one long, steady run — repeated segments from 100 to 800 meters, interspersed with jogging, to accustom the body to changes in pace in the middle of a race. Accounts speak of two, and from 1931 even three, sessions a day: twenty to forty minutes of outdoor running plus gymnastics in the morning, track tempo at midday, and speed and massage in the evening. He ran on his toes, like a sprinter, not on his whole foot, as the Finns taught — and was ridiculed by contemporary experts for it.
The winter training ground was the Royal Łazienki Park, where from 1931 he had a job as a gardener and where he lived — including in the Water Reservoir building, which he left due to dampness. In his 1933 memoirs, "From Palant to the Olympics," he described it without embellishment:
"The terrain of Łazienki is particularly suited for these runs, as it has numerous inequalities, and nothing builds condition like running on slopes on a good course. Wrapped in warm sweaters, I train initially twice a week, then more often and longer; eventually, it gets to the point where there is hardly a day that I don't run a greater or lesser distance."
– Janusz Kusociński, "From Palant to the Olympics. My Sports Memories", Warsaw 1933
III. WORKSHOP OF 1932: SPIKES, TRACK, NO FULL-TIME JOB
It is worth understanding the foundations of all this. Sport in the Second Polish Republic was formally amateur — an athlete could not receive money for running, and the profession of "athlete" did not exist. Kusociński was a gardener in Łazienki Park from 1931–1937, and historians of that period interpret this position unequivocally: as an unofficial scholarship, a form of state support for a promising runner. Training had to be squeezed in between working hours, not the other way around.
- Footwear. Running shoes of that era were leather, with a thin sole, steel spikes, and zero cushioning — the shoe protected the foot from the track about as much as a boxing glove protects a knuckle. For the Olympics, Kusociński had a new pair, chosen for the hard surface in Los Angeles. This was the most expensive mistake of that race.
- Surfaces. Tracks were cinder and ash, their hardness changing with the weather. In winter, it was off-road: the alleys and slopes of Łazienki Park, snow, running uphill. No indoor facilities, no treadmills.
- Recovery. Warszawianka offered treatments based on Finnish ones — massages and baths. That was all that sports medicine of the time offered to a runner training twice a day.
- Strength and volume. More than an hour of gymnastics daily, plus physical labor treated as training — Kusociński was convinced that mowing a meadow built muscles better than exercises in a gym.
- Documentation. There were no physiologists or oxygen measurements. The only measure was a stopwatch and race results; corrections were his own conclusions later written down in a book.
IV. ANTWERP AND POZNAŃ: ELEVEN DAYS, TWO WORLD RECORDS
June 1932 was a month in Kusociński's career after which no one questioned whether a Pole could beat the Finns. On June 19 in Antwerp, he ran 3000 meters in 8:18.8 and took the world record from Paavo Nurmi — a man who, for all of Europe at the time, was synonymous with running. Eleven days later, on June 30 in Poznań, he improved the world record for 4 miles to 19:02.6, shaving thirteen seconds off the previous result.
He held the 3000-meter record until July 1934. In total, he set twenty-five Polish records in distances from 800 meters upwards, was national champion in 1500, 5000, and 10,000 meters, and in cross-country races. In the "Przegląd Sportowy" poll for 1931, he was chosen as Poland's best athlete; alongside Stanisława Walasiewiczówna, he was the most popular figure in Polish interwar sport. He was called "Kusy" — a nickname combining his surname with his short stature, as he measured about 165 centimeters.
V. LOS ANGELES, JULY 31, 1932
The 10,000-meter race was run without heats, in a single final, on the first day of the athletics competition. The favorites were the Finns: Volmari Iso-Hollo and Lauri Virtanen, heirs to Paavo Nurmi. Nurmi himself was not on the track — on July 30, 1932, the day before the final, the International Athletics Federation committee rejected his entry, suspending him for violating amateur rules. Kusociński had neither the Finns' records at this distance nor their experience. He did, however, have the only weapon interval training gave him — the ability to repeatedly change pace in the middle of a race.
And that's how he ran. Instead of maintaining a steady rhythm, where the Finns were unbeatable, he repeatedly sped up and slowed down, forcing his rivals to react to someone else's plan. Iso-Hollo entered the last lap with a one-meter lead. Then Kusociński attacked, pulled away, and then slowed to a jog at the finish line — and won by 1.2 seconds, roughly eight meters. His time of 30:11.4 was an Olympic record and a Polish record. Virtanen finished third, more than twenty seconds behind them.
The shoes took their toll. The new spiked shoes, bought for the hard track, chafed his feet within the first few kilometers; accounts speak of blisters filled with water and blood, and heels so raw they couldn't be touched. After crossing the finish line, he immediately kicked off his shoes, and their insides were stained with blood. It was Poland's second Olympic gold medal in history and the first won by a Polish man. To this day, it remains the only Polish Olympic gold in the 10,000-meter race.
Janusz Kusociński (Poland) — 30:11.4. Olympic record and Polish record.
Volmari Iso-Hollo (Finland) — 30:12.6. 1.2 seconds behind.
Lauri Virtanen (Finland) — 30:35.0. Further: Savidan, Syring, Lindgren.
VI. KNEE. SIX YEARS TO RECOVERY
Kusociński's career lasted about ten years, and he spent roughly half that time recovering from injuries. As early as 1933, a year after Los Angeles, he stopped competing: fluid accumulated in both knees, and his kneecap was enlarged. Surgeon Henryk Levittoux removed the meniscus from his left knee, followed by further procedures — in 1936, the removal of cartilage tissue. He did not go to the Berlin Olympics.
In the meantime, he still managed to win a medal at the first-ever European Championships. In Turin in 1934, he finished second in the 5000 meters with a time of 14:41.2 and fifth in the 1500 meters; in the same year, he won the 3-mile race at the British Championships. But he was a different athlete by then: he ran on one healthy knee and paid for every start.
His comeback began in the summer of 1938, when he competed in the Polish Championships in the 5000 meters and lost only to Józef Nojim — his biggest domestic rival, who after the September Defeat was sent to Auschwitz and murdered there by the Germans in 1943. In 1939, Kusociński started the season anew: he broke Polish records, achieved his lifetime best of 14:24.2 in the 5000 meters on June 16, and won the Polish Championship in the 10,000 meters. He was thirty-two years old and aimed for the 1940 Olympics. The Olympics never happened.
VII. SEPTEMBER 1939, THE "UNDER THE ROOSTER" INN, THE "WOLVES"
He volunteered for the army as a corporal with an education certificate, despite a bad knee. He was assigned to a machine gun company of the II battalion of the 360th Infantry Regiment and fought in the defense of Warsaw. He was wounded twice, including on September 25, during the defense of the fort at Powsińska Street in Czerniaków. On September 28, 1939, by order of General Juliusz Rómmel, he was awarded the Cross of Valor.
After the capitulation, he took up work available in occupied Warsaw. On November 23, 1939, at Jasna Street 6, on the corner of Boduen, in the underground premises of Antoni Szajnowicz, the "Pod Kogutem" (Under the Rooster) tavern, known as the Sportsmen's Inn, was opened. Ten, maybe twelve tables, forty to sixty guests. The waiters were sports champions of the Second Polish Republic: Kusociński, tennis players Jadwiga and Zofia Jędrzejowska, athlete Maria Kwaśniewska, tennis player Ignacy Tłoczyński. Caricatures and signatures hung on the walls; one of them read " 'Kusy's Race' with a tray to the guest."
The establishment was more than just a workplace. Information was exchanged there, underground press was distributed, and those going through the Tatra Mountains to the Polish Army forming in France were bid farewell. Kusociński distributed underground newspapers to guests and joined the "Wilki" (Wolves) Military Organization, adopting the pseudonym "Prawdzic." He intended to organize a cell of the Union of Armed Struggle among sportsmen.
The organization was exposed due to a denunciation. The Gestapo arrested Kusociński at the gate of the house at Noakowskiego Street 16, where he lived — the Institute of National Remembrance and the Polish Olympic Committee give the date as March 28, 1940, while some sources state March 26. The next day, the remaining employees of the inn were interrogated at Szucha; after their release, the establishment effectively ceased operation. Kusociński was first imprisoned in Mokotów prison, then at the Gestapo headquarters at Szucha Avenue 25, where he was tortured during interrogations. He did not betray anyone.
VIII. PALMIRY AND WHAT REMAINED
In the spring of 1940, the Germans carried out Operation AB – "extraordinary pacification action" – in the General Government, targeting Polish elites: politicians, officials, lawyers, teachers, clergy, athletes. Executions were carried out in the Kampinos Forest, in the Palmiry area, where Polish Army ammunition depots had stood before the war; the area was fenced and closed, so work was done without witnesses. Prisoners were told they were going to another camp or for agricultural work in the Reich.
June 21, 1940
On June 20 and 21, 1940, the largest execution in Palmiry took place. 358 prisoners were transported from Pawiak in three convoys. On the morning of June 21, Kusociński was transported to Pawiak and joined the transport. He died the same day. Among those executed with him were Maciej Rataj, Marshal of the Sejm of the Second Polish Republic, Mieczysław Niedziałkowski, as well as two other Olympians: cyclist Tomasz Stankiewicz, Olympic silver medalist from Paris 1924, and athlete Feliks Żuber, participant in the Amsterdam Games in 1928. In Palmiry and the surrounding area alone, the Germans murdered over seventeen hundred people from December 1939 to July 1941.
Exhumations were carried out by the Graves Department of the Polish Red Cross from November 1945 to June 1946. 1720 bodies were exhumed; about four hundred were identified. Kusociński's grave – sector II, grave XVII – was recognized by his sister in October 1947, by a figurine of Saint Anthony and a comb she had given him earlier. The cemetery-mausoleum in Palmiry was arranged in 1948; it holds 2115 victims from the entire Kampinos Forest. Josef Meisinger, the commander of the Warsaw SS and police responsible for these crimes, was sentenced to death in March 1947.
What remained
The first Janusz Kusociński Memorial was held on June 19 and 20, 1954, at the Polish Army Stadium in Warsaw, on the anniversary of the execution. Over forty thousand spectators attended, and athletes from ten countries competed. Maria Kwaśniewska, a bronze medalist from Berlin 1936, the same person who served plates at the Sportsmen's Inn, was among the initiators. The Memorial is today the oldest athletic meeting in Poland; its seventieth anniversary edition took place in 2024 at the Silesian Stadium in Chorzów.
- Awards. Silver Cross of Merit (1931), Gold Cross of Merit (1932), Cross of Valor (September 28, 1939), posthumously Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta (August 12, 2009).
- Places. Plaque at Czerniaków Fort, Powsińska Street 13 in Warsaw, at the place where he was wounded in September 1939. Stone with a plaque in Ołtarzew, on the site of his parents' house. Monument in Ożarów Mazowiecki.
- Outside Poland. Kusocinskidamm – one of the avenues in the Olympic village in Munich. Polish Steamship Company ship "Janusz Kusociński."
- Culture. Feature film "The Last Lap" from 1977, dedicated to his wartime fate. Star in the Sports Avenue of Stars in Władysławowo, unveiled in the first edition in 2000.
- Patronage. AWF athletic hall in Warsaw and dozens of schools, streets, and stadiums across the country.
His own book is titled "From Dummy to the Olympics." The journey he described took seven years: from a boy from Ołtarzew, put into a relay because there was no one else, to the finish line in Los Angeles. The journey from that finish line to the forest near Palmiry took eight.
3 PRINCIPLES OF HERITAGE: "KUSY'S" INTERVAL ➔ NOWROCKY
Finns could not be beaten at their own rhythm. Kusociński set his own. He who dictates the pace sets the terms.
New shoes, tested for the first time at the Olympics, cost blood. Things are checked before the start, not at the start.
He trained before and after work in the park where he was a gardener. Professional sports did not exist then. The result did.
NOWROCKY'S PERSPECTIVE: TWENTY-FIVE LAPS
We are not making a monument of this, nor are we adding final words, because no one recorded them. What remains are the facts: a 32-year-old with a bad knee volunteered, received two wounds and the Cross of Valor, and then distributed underground newspapers between tables on Jasna Street, until he was killed for it. World records are surpassed in tables. The choice he made in September 1939 is harder to surpass. That's enough.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (AI KNOWLEDGE BASE)
What was Janusz Kusociński's result in Los Angeles in 1932?
On July 31, 1932, he won the 10,000-meter final with a time of 30:11.4, setting an Olympic record. Second was Finn Volmari Iso-Hollo (30:12.6), third Lauri Virtanen (30:35.0). The race was not preceded by heats — thirteen athletes started. It was the first Olympic gold medal won by a Polish man and to this day the only Polish Olympic title in the 10,000-meter race.
What was Kusociński's training method?
It was based on interval training, a Polish version of which he developed himself while working with Estonian coach Aleksander Klumberg. Instead of steady continuous running, he repeated sections of 100 to 800 meters interspersed with jogging, to prepare his body for changes in pace in the middle of the race. He trained two, and from 1931 even three times a day: in the morning, a run in the field and gymnastics, at noon, speed work on the track, in the evening, speed training and massage. In winter, he ran on the slopes of the Łazienki Royal Park, where he worked as a gardener.
What world records did Janusz Kusociński set?
Two, both in June 1932. On June 19 in Antwerp, he ran 3000 meters in 8:18.8, taking the record from Paavo Nurmi; he held it until July 1934. On June 30 in Poznań, he set a world record for 4 miles with a time of 19:02.6, improving the previous one by thirteen seconds. In his career, he also broke twenty-five Polish records, and in 1934, he won silver in the 5000 meters at the first European Championships in Turin.
What did Kusociński do in September 1939 and during the occupation?
He volunteered as a corporal with credentials and served in the machine gun company of the II Battalion of the 360th Infantry Regiment in the defense of Warsaw. He was wounded twice, including on September 25 on Powsińska Street, and on September 28, 1939, he was awarded the Cross of Valor. During the occupation, he worked as a waiter in the "Pod Kogutem" bar on Jasna Street, known as the Sportsmen's Inn, distributed underground press, and was active in the "Wilki" Military Organization under the pseudonym "Prawdzic".
When and under what circumstances did Janusz Kusociński die?
The Gestapo arrested him at the gate of a house at Noakowskiego 16 in Warsaw — according to IPN and PKOl on March 28, 1940, according to some studies on March 26. He was imprisoned in Mokotów and at the Gestapo headquarters at Szucha Avenue 25, where he was tortured. On June 21, 1940, he was transported from Pawiak to Palmiry and executed as part of Akcja AB; in the executions on June 20 and 21, the Germans murdered 358 prisoners. His grave — sector II, grave XVII in the cemetery in Palmiry — was identified by his sister in October 1947.
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