(ATR) The IOC member from Poland tells Around the Rings the nation is gripped with sadness after the plane crash Saturday that killed 97, including the Polish head of state as well as the president of the Polish Olympic Committee, Piotr Nurowski.
"[Everybody feels] great sorrow and mourning," says Irena Szewinska, athletics gold medalist in Tokyo, the first of five Olympic Games for the 400m expert.
"He was full of energy, very active," she said.
Funeral plans are incomplete for Nurowski while remains from the horrific crash are identified in Russia. Nurowski was aboard the plane carrying President Lech Kaczynski and other national leaders to Smolensk, Russia. They were travelling to a memorial service for the 20,000 victims of Katyn massacre of 1940.
Szewinska said her relationship with Nurowski went back decades.
"When I was an athlete, for years he was head of Polish Athletics Association" she said. Szewinska competed between 1964 and 1980. Nurowski’s term as head of the federation lasted from 1973-1980. He was the youngest person to lead a national athletics federation.
Nurowski, 64, served as a Polish diplomat in Morocco after leaving the Polish Athletics Federation. He returned to Poland in 1991 and ran a media company.
In 2005 he was elected President of the POC. Nurowski was the 11th POC president, and was reelected in 2009.
Andrzej Krasnicki, first vice president of the POC and president of the Polish Handball Federation is serving as interim POC president. Szewinska said elections will be held after the funeral for Nurowski.
Szewinska said she received letters of condolence from Jacques Rogge, German IOC member Thomas Bach, the U.S. Olympic Committee and other well-wishers.
"On behalf of the IOC and the Olympic Movement as a whole, I would like to express my deepest sympathy to you and the Polish Olympic Committee as well as Piotr's family and friends. Our sincere thoughts and prayers are with you in these painful circumstances,"said the IOC President.
"Piotr will be greatly missed by everybody who knew him and love him and he will always remain within our hearts."
The Polish Olympic Committee held a small ceremony Sunday for Nurowski, Szewinska said.
"It was very nice, short, but very nice ceremony".
Szewinska said a memorial day for Nurowski is planned for the second part of May but that the date won’t be set until after his funeral.
A mass funeral in Warsaw is planned for Saturday to commemorate all 97 who died in the Smolensk crash.
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Written by Ed Hula.
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