A huge blow to Polish sport. The legendary trainer has passed away

Roma Dakiniewicz was most closely associated, and rightly so, with the Bydgoszcz sports community. However, the pole vault coach raised several champions who achieved triumphs on international arenas.

– The Polish Athletics Association regrets to inform that pole vault coach Roman Dakiniewicz, an outstanding trainer associated with Zawisza Bydgoszcz, educator of, among others, Paweł Wojciechowski, Mirosław Chmara and Łukasz Michalski, died at the age of 88 – we read in the PZLA entry on the X platform.

Roman Dakiniewicz is dead. A huge loss for Polish sport!

Dakiniewicz raised many generations of Polish pole vaulters. He was not only a distinguished trainer, but also an officer of the Polish Army. Additionally, he is an honorary member of the Polish Athletics Association.

– When he started working, he had only one pole vaulter under his care at the club (Zawisza in Bydgoszcz, note by eMPe). Five years later, one of his pupils broke the first national record. He wrote down all notes from classes and recruitment, successes and achievements in thick notebooks. When he wasn’t training, he went to his favorite plot of land, but even there, when he finished gardening, he also watched videos of pole vaulters. For 52 years, Dakiniewicz’s pupils have won a quarter of a thousand medals – Dakiniewicz was described in 2016 in “Gazeta Wyborcza” from Bydgoszcz.

The pole vaulting traditions, first as a leading Polish athlete and now as a coach, are continued by the son of the late legend, Wojciech Dakiniewicz.

Funeral ceremonies of the late Roman Dakiniewicz will take place on May 20 in Bydgoszcz. At 12:30 in the Church of St. Saint Maksymilian Kolbe at ul. A rosary will be said on Kolibrowa, and Holy Mass will take place half an hour later.

Roman Dakiniewicz died at the age of 88.