Aleksandra Mirosław the man of the year “Wprost” 2024

At the beginning, a short statistics that will lead us to certain conclusions. “Wprost” awards the Man of the Year Award for 34 years. At that time, the title went to politicians 25 times, starting from prof. Leszek Balcerowicz, the first awarded in 1991, by Kwasniewski, Wałęsa, Miller, Kaczyński, Buzek, Tusk, Komorowski, to Morawiecki. Jarosław Kaczyński received the title of man of the year from “Wprost” twice – in 2005 and 2015 he also received Donald Tusk twice – in 2008 and 2011, Leszek Miller was also our man twice – in 2001 and a year later in 2002, with Günter Verheugen, for introducing Poland to the European Union.

Discharging from the breakthrough

There were seven foreign people of the year. There was Verheugen, about which above. There was Leo Beenhakker, who was the first coach in the history of Polish football to introduce our team to the European Championships. There was Wiktor Juszczenko, there was Angela Merkel, he was Georgette Mosbacher, he was Wołodymyr Zelnski and Antony Blinken.

A representative of the world of culture was a man of the year “Wprost” unfortunately only once. In 1996, Wisława Szymborska received the award.

“Sometimes it is worth forgetting about dividends, strikes, trade deficit, current trade balance, change of minister, and the scandal in the privatization of a drawn wire factory, growth rate, inflation, unemployment, fluctuations in action. Nobel for a poet from Krakow, though for a moment, it has pulled away from what is often breakthrough today, and after years of descendants sometimes it is evaluated as fertilizer of history.” – the then editors of “Wprost” wrote in the justification of the win.

Złota Aleksandra Mirosław

This is how it is with this year’s award. Her laureate pulled us away from our private nightmares of the past year for a few moments. High inflation, war at the eastern border, expensive loans, disinformation, total, keeping at a high level of uncertainty, which will happen next.

We could at least forget about all this during a few moments at last year’s Olympic Games in Paris. 214 Polish representatives went to them. Of them, only she won a gold medal for our country. In August last year, she broke the world record twice at the same games.

We grant Aleksandra Mirosław, of course, for outstanding sporting achievements and representing our country abroad, but also for a set of noble features, which unfortunately dying all over the world. It is primarily honesty, when, despite the great success, two world records and the gold medal, Aleksandra Mirosław says in an interview with “Wprost” that we should end the treatment of athletes like superheroes, that she is not a robot, that you can’t be still motivated, you can’t win everything.

It is also admitting to mistakes and pulling lessons out of failures, when in 2023 she flooded with tears after losing in the semi -final of the world championships.

– Sometimes you have to take these few steps backwards to go forward to diverge

– he explains today.

This is diligence – void, often monotonous trainings, diet, supplementation, regeneration over and over again. This training is not with women, but men to move the limit of their abilities. It is finally patriotism when he says that in the event of an armed conflict in Poland, he grabs the weapon and is ready to defend his homeland.

Once again, the “Wprost” Human Award did not go to any politician. One of the most important reasons why it happened is quite simple – politicians most often such features that Aleksandra Mirosław simply do not have.