Irene Piotrowski

Biographical information

RolesCompeted in Olympic Games
SexFemale
Full nameIrene Maria•Piotrowski (Macijauskas-, -Roger)
Used nameIrene•Piotrowski
Born9 July 1941 in Skaudvilė, Tauragė (LTU)
Died13 August 2020 in Los Angeles, California (USA)
Measurements164 cm / 61 kg
Affiliations?, Vancouver (CAN)
NOC Canada

Biography

Canada’s top sprinter of the 1960s Irene Piotrowski (née Macijauskas) competed twice at the Olympic Games. In 1964 (Tokyo), she reached the 100 metres semi-final and in 1968 (Mexico City), despite being injured, she twice set the Canadian 100 metres national record with her personal best of 11.3 seconds at altitude.

Piotrowski made her big international breakthrough by becoming a two-time Commonwealth Games medalist at Kingston in 1966 (100 yards silver, 220 yards bronze) and two-time 1967 Pan American Games medalist at Winnipeg, where she was the women’s team captain (4 x 100 metres relay silver, 100 metres bronze). At the Canadian Championships, Piotrowski captured national titles in the 100 metres (1964, 1967-69) and 200 metres (1967, 1969). In a meet in Los Angeles in 1967, Piotrowski won silver medals in the 100 and 200 metres defeating three of the greatest runners in the world at the time – Wyomia Tyus, Barbara Ferrell, and Jennifer Lamy. Known for her awkward yet powerful running style, Piotrowski’s athletic career was hampered with injuries, forcing her to retire from the sport in 1973, yet remaining a fitness advocate.

Born in Lithuania in 1941, Piotrowski’s parents Ona Maciulyte and Jonas Macijauskas and siblings fled Soviet occupation when she was three-years-old, first living for three years in a displaced-persons camp in Kessel, Germany. The family was sponsored by an uncle to immigrate to Canada, arriving in Halifax in 1948 aboard the ocean liner Aquitania. They settled in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, after travelling across the country by train, and started a poultry farm.

Raised on the farm, Piotrowkski joined the Moody High School track team but did not make her national début until the age of 22, when she was a member of the Canadian record-setting 4 x 110 yards relay team in a meet at 1963 in Vancouver. At the time she was coaching track at the elementary school where she was teaching. Nicknamed “Irene the Dream” and the “hustling housewife” by male sportswriters, her husband at the time, Heinz (a University Club bartender), was her inexperienced coach who learned his skills by reading manuals.

Piotrowski studied education at the University of British Columbia, where she played basketball and was part of the cheer squad. Life after track included being married twice, running a jewellery store, moving to Los Angeles, being active in the Church of Scientology, and promoting health and fitness (which led to a photo shoot in an Iron Man Magazine with Arnold Schwarzenegger). She was inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in 1993. Piotrowski died of pancreatic cancer in 2020 at the age of 79.

Results

Games Discipline (Sport) / Event NOC / Team Pos Medal As
1964 Summer Olympics Athletics CAN Irene Piotrowski
100 metres, Women (Olympic) 5 h2 r3/4
200 metres, Women (Olympic) 3 h2 r1/3
1968 Summer Olympics Athletics CAN Irene Piotrowski
100 metres, Women (Olympic) 6 h1 r3/4
200 metres, Women (Olympic) 5 h2 r1/3
4 × 100 metres Relay, Women (Olympic) Canada 5 h1 r1/2

Special Notes