Justyna Kowalczyk

https://www.olympic.org/justyna-kowalczyk - retrieved 16.01.2018

On February 22, 2015 won bronze medal of the World Championship 2015 in team sprint with Sylwia Jaśkowiec in Falun, Sweden.

She won the Vasaloppet ski marathon in 2015 with a time of 4:41:02. She also won the Birkebeinerrennet long-distance cross-country ski marathon held annually in Norway in 2017 and 2018.

Kowalczyk won the 10 km classical race in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi on a broken foot. She did not finish 30 km freestyle race.

Kowalczyk graduated from the Jerzy Kukuczka University of Physical Education in Katowice with an M.A. and a Ph.D. degree in physical education in 2014 at the Bronisław Czech University of Physical Education in Kraków, where her dissertation was titled "The structure and volume of training load cross-country skiing on the background of the evolution of technology gear and different levels of sports".

On 27 February 2010, Kowalczyk beat Norway's Marit Bjørgen by 0.3 seconds to win the gold medal in the women's 30 km classical event in the 2010 Winter Olympics. She posted a time of one hour, 30 minutes, 33.7 seconds. She earned two more medals in Vancouver, taking silver behind Bjørgen in the individual sprint classic on February 17, 2010, and bronze in the 15 km pursuit on February 19, 2010.

Kowalczyk criticized Marit Bjørgen and other competitors during the Olympic Games in 2010 for using anti-asthma drugs. Bjørgen won five medals in the Olympics, three of them gold. The drug is allowed by FIS if prescribed by an Olympic team physician. Kowalczyk later apologized for the timing of her statements, since the Games were still going on at the time. The asthma medication Marit Bjørgen is using, Symbicort, has since been removed from WADA's list of banned substances.

At the 2009 world championships in Liberec, Kowalczyk won two gold medals, one in the women's pursuit (7.5 km classical + 7.5 km free technique), and another one in the 30 km mass start. She also secured a bronze medal in the 10 km classical event.

She won the overall 2008–09 Cross-Country Skiing World Cup. On 24 March 2009, Kowalczyk was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

In 2002 she came second in the individual sprint at the World Junior Championships. She finished 31st in the individual sprint event at the 2003 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. Recently in Canmore, Canada, on 22 January 2008, Justyna Kowalczyk won the race for her second World Cup triumph. She followed in Canmore with two more bronze medals in the same World Cup event. Kowalczyk was 3rd in the 2007 World Cup. She has also won thirty individual events at various distances and levels since 2001.

At the 2005 World Championships, Kowalczyk competed but was subsequently disqualified for taking dexamethasone at the Under23 (U23) OPA (Alpine Nations) Intercontinental Cup competition in Oberstdorf, Germany back on January 23, 2005. Dexamethason is a substance that is allowed Out-of-Competition but prohibited In-Competition. It acts as an anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressant. Kowalczyk used the substance to alleviate an Achilles tendon condition.

On 13 June 2005, the FIS Doping Panel issued a two-year suspension (23 January 2005 – 22 January 2007) for Kowalczyk. In late June 2005 FIS determined that since dexamethasone was a glucocorticosteroid, it was classified as a specified substance on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) list of prohibited substances, and therefore the period of ineligibility for the first violation is at a maximum, one year's ineligibility. The FIS Doping Panel therefore reduced the suspension to one year.

Kowalczyk appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which held that Kowalczyk did not use Dexamethason to enhance her sport performance. However, she acted negligently, but the measure of the negligence did not justify a one-year term of ineligibility. According to CAS, a reduced period of ineligibility ending 8 December 2005 (the day of the hearing) provided the fair and proportionate measure of sanction.

Born in Limanowa, Southern Poland, Kowalczyk took up cross country skiing at the age of 10. She then competed in her first FIS World Cup race at Cogne (ITA) in December 2001.

Justyna Maria Kowalczyk (born 19 January 1983) is a Polish cross-country skier who has been competing since 2000. Kowalczyk is a double Olympic Champion and a double World Champion. She is also the only skier to win the Tour de Ski four times in a row and one of two female skiers, who won the FIS Cross-Country World Cup three times in a row (the other one being Finn Marjo Matikainen). Kowalczyk holds the all-time record for the most wins in Tour de Ski with 14 competitions won and 29 podiums in total. She also won the Vasaloppet women's edition in 2015.