Klaudia Osipiuk

Happy birthday to Poland’s 400m runner Klaudia Osipiuk, who has taken more than eight tenths off her best this season.

On 20 June in Lublin, Klaudia ran 52.63 over 400m, a personal best, and ran 23.85 over 200m on the same day, another one. Twelve months earlier her best had been 53.46. She is the Polish U23 champion over 400m, having won the title in Kraków in 2025 and again in 2026, and she is the Polish U23 indoor champion over 400m as well, having won in Toruń in February and finished eighth in the senior field on the same run. Three national golds and a silver in two seasons.

Last year she took the Polish vest to the European U23 Championships in Bergen, where she ran 53.31 in the 400m semi-final and was part of the Polish 4x400m team that finished fifth in the final in 3:29.98. In April this year she was in South Africa on a training camp, which is where the eight tenths came from.

The 400m one-lap improvement curve is the most honest thing in athletics. Sprinters can get lucky with a wind, distance runners can get lucky with a race, but nobody accidentally takes eight tenths off a 400m. It comes out of a winter of work that nobody watched, and it arrives all at once in June in Lublin.

Wszystkiego najlepszego, Klaudia! Sto lat, dużo zdrowia i jeszcze wiele szybkich okrążeń przed Tobą! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇵🇱