A marriage worthy of a medal! Konrad and Natalia Bukowiecki are now aiming for the pucks in Apeldoorn

When Bukowiecki won the European Indoor Championship in 2017 – breaking the Polish record in the process – and a year later turned out to be the best shot putter on the Old Continent in an outdoor stadium, it seemed that the following years would belong to him and that the Pole would be among the world's top shot putters for a long time. Unfortunately, due to health problems, recent seasons have not been successful for our representative. The InPost Team shot putter was unlucky, as was the case at the World Championships in Budapest in 2023, where not only did he start with knee pain, but he also sprained his ankle during the warm-up before the qualifiers.

– Instead of doing what I love, I am constantly rehabilitating, trying to get out of one injury, and the next moment I get into another. I don't want to do all this – he said, devastated, in the capital of Hungary. Fortunately, that is already the past. The present and – hopefully! – the future are a healthy Konrad Bukowiecki. He has been doing very well since the beginning of the indoor season and in Toruń he did not disappoint his fans either. In his best attempt he achieved 21.32 m, literally crushing all his domestic rivals, overtaking the second Szymon Mazur by over two and a half meters!

– I am very happy because stabilizing at the level of twenty-one meters has always been my goal. This is my first time exceeding twenty-one meters in two years, it's great! – said the 27-year-old after the competition. And he assured that the role of the favorite does not burn him out mentally. – I like being the favorite, I like to feel strong. So I like such competitions, I hope that my results will be better and better.

Obviously, appetite grows with eating. Especially among fans, especially since the European Indoor Championships will start on March 6. Bukowiecki currently has the fifth result on the European lists, which makes him a candidate to fight for high positions in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands.

- I know there will be questions about the twenty-two meters, but don't worry. If my form continues to improve, as it has been since January, it will be great. The result from the final is definitely not my maximum, another two weeks without a start will do me good, I will only focus on training - he summed up.

The silver medal at the Polish Indoor Championships is also a valuable medal for his wife Natalia. Especially since it was only on Saturday that our star finished the 400-meter race for the first time this season and her appearance in Toruń was questionable until the last few days. There were many theories that she would not return to running in the winter at all. Let us recall that at the beginning of February, Bukowiecka did not finish her start at the meeting in Ostrava due to a biceps femoris injury.

But she returned to the starts in Toruń, and in the final she achieved her best result of the season (51.87 s), which gave her second place in the final after an extremely exciting fight with Justyna Święty-Ersetic.

- Due to the injury, I lost some of my self-confidence and my greatest asset, which is the fluidity of running. I didn't feel confident because I had only three training sessions under my belt. I have to deal with it - commented the InPost Team sprinter after the final. The bronze Olympic medalist from Paris also admitted that the injury and withdrawal from starts in the first part of the month affected her well-being. The number one goal for the coming days, which is to regain full health, will certainly have a positive impact on her mental disposition. The long-term goal, on the other hand, is to properly prepare for the world championships in an open stadium, which will be held in Tokyo this year. And there is still a lot of time until them, because the event will not take place until mid-September.

Thanks to her second place in the final, Bukowiecka already has a full set of medals from the Polish Indoor Senior Championships. In 2022, she was third in the 400 meters, and last year she proved to be the best and won gold.