Józef Baran-Bilewski

In addition to being an outstanding track and field athlete, Józef Baran-Bilewski also had a lengthy career in the military. Baran-Bilewski represented the Pogoń Lwów sports club where he specialised in the shot put, discus, and hammer throw. During the 1920s he set 13 Polish records in the shot put and discus, improving the shot put distance from 11.945 metres to 13.34 metres, and the discus throw from 41.43 metres to 44.20 metres. He won 19 medals at the Polish Championships including gold in the shot put (1922, 1923, 1926), and gold in the discus (1926, 1927, 1929). Baran-Bilewski competed in the discus throw at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, finishing in 18th place with a throw of 41.77 metres. He was also scheduled to compete in the shot put but did not start the event.

Baran-Bilewski was a talented sports officer and undertook a one-year course in Poznań in 1925. He later became an instructor in athletics and boxing before taking a gymnastics course in Ollerup in Denmark in the early 1930s. In addition to teaching sports courses Baran-Bilewski was active with the Polish Football Association and the Polish Olympic Committee.

Bookending his sports career, Baran-Bilewski spent his life in the military, initially serving as a reserve officer in the Austrian Army, before joining the Polish Army in 1918. He fought in the Polish-Ukrainian War with the 17th Infantry Regiment in Lviv. After transferring to the 6th Army in Krakow he worked as an artillery instructor in local military camps. In 1931 Baran-Bilewski was awarded with the Silver Cross of Merit before working at the Warsaw Academy of Physical Education the following year. He remained at the academy until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. During the first month of the war, however, he was captured by Soviet troops and was taken to the Katyn forest and murdered by the NKVD (the Soviet secret police) in April 1940.

Personal Best: DT – 44.87 (1928).