Radoslaw Kawecki
Born August 16, 1991 Radoslaw Kawecki is a Polish competitive swimmer and Olympian. Originally from Glogow, Poland Kawecki is a multi-time gold medalist at the European Championships, and narrowly missed making the podium at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
2012 London Olympics
Formerly known as Poland’s backstroke king, Kawecki was bumped from the 100-meter back by Marcin Tarczynski, leaving him to swim only the 200-meter back in London. With just one event to swim at the Olympics, Kawecki didn’t hold anything back, and finished 4th overall, just one spot away from taking home an Olympic medal.
2013 Championships
In 2013 Kawecki had just come off of his first Olympic Games, and he started off the championship season off at the. He took on Ryan Lochte in the 200-meter back, challenging him in the last 100 meters, but it wasn’t enough to overtake the American leaving Kawecki with silver. This meet showed great improvement for Kawecki, as he’s showed major improvement over the last few years, moving up places in each major competition.
At the FINA World Cup in Berlin, Kawecki edged out Tyler Clary in the final of the 200-meter back and later in October of 2013 picking up this third World Cup victory of the year.
2014 European Championships
At the 2014 European Championships Poland had been struggling up until day six of the meet with a huge help from Kawecki. In the 200-meter back Kawecki defended his European Championship title moving Poland to one of the top 10 countries who had won the most medals.
2015 World Championships
Going into the 2015 World Championships Kawecki had recently posted the world’s second-fastest mark in the 100-meter back at Polish Nationals putting him in a good spot for Worlds. Predicted to finish 4th in the event, the finals showed a much different result. Mitchell Larkin took the gold in this one, but the tight race came for 2nd. With four finishers within half-a-second, the race came down to the last 50 meters. Kawecki was in 8th place at both the 50 and 100-meter marks, but pulled off an amazing last 100 meters to pass nearly everyone in the race to take the silver medal home. Kawecki also swam the 100-meter back, but his preliminary swim wasn’t enough to advance to the semi-finals.
2016 Rio Olympics Olympics
Kawecki swam the 100 and 200 backstroke in Rio. In the 100, he finished 23rd in 54.39. In the 200, he finished in 17th, just outside of qualifying for semis, in a time of 1:57.61.
2018 European Championships
At the European championships in 2018, Kawcki came in as the European record holder in the 200 backstroke as well as the 3-time defending Euro champ in the same event. Both of those were taken from him by Evgeny Rylov in the final of the event, however Kawecki did still finish in 2nd, good for his first international medal in 2 years plus his fastest time in the 200 backstroke since 2015 (1:56.07).
2018 Short Course World Championships
Kawecki once again came into an international meet as the 3-time defending champion in the 200 back, and once again was dethroned. However, he kept his medal streak alive, earning bronze in Hangzhou to make it 4-for-4 (and 4 in a row) short course world championships that he had medaled in the 200 back.
2021 Short Course World Championships
Kawecki was dethroned in 2018 as the SC world champion, but it didn’t last long. He was able to bounce back and touch first (1:48.61) in Abu Dhabu, not only regaining his title but making it 5 medals in a row at 5 SC world championships in the 200 back for Kawecki.
