Poland's sports include almost all sporting disciplines, in particular: football, volleyball, motorcycle speedway, ski jumping, track and field, handball, basketball, tennis, and combat sport. The first Polish Formula One driver, Robert Kubica, has brought awareness of Formula One Racing to Poland. Volleyball is one of the country's most popular sports, with a rich history of international competition. Poland has made a distinctive mark in motorcycle speedway racing thanks to Tomasz Gollob, Jaroslaw Hampel, Bartosz Zmarzlik, Maciej Janowski and Rune Holta. Speedway is very popular in Poland. They won the world cup (2014), and the Polish Extraleague has the highest average attendances for any sport in Poland. The Polish mountains are an ideal venue for hiking, skiing and mountain biking and attract millions of tourists every year from all over the world. Cross country skiing and ski jumping are popular TV sports, gathering 4–5 million viewers each competition, with Justyna Kowalczyk, Dawid Kubacki, Adam Małysz and Kamil Stoch as the main attractions. Baltic beaches and resorts are popular locations for fishing, canoeing, kayaking and a broad-range of other water-themed sports.
Jarosław Aleksander Kaczyński is a Polish politician. He has been the leader of the Law and Justice party (PiS) since 2003. He served as Prime Minister of Poland from 2006 to 2007, and has twice held the post of Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, first from 2020 to 2022, and a second time from June to November 2023.
Donald Franciszek Tusk is a Polish politician and historian who has served as the prime minister of Poland since 2023, having previously held the post from 2007 to 2014. From 2014 to 2019 Tusk served as President of the European Council, and from 2019 to 2022 he was the president of the European People's Party (EPP). He co-founded the Civic Platform (PO) party in 2001 and has served as its long-time leader, first from 2003 to 2014 and again since 2021.
Radosław Tomasz "Radek" Sikorski is a Polish politician, journalist and statesman who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland in Donald Tusk's cabinet since 2023, previously holding the office between 2007 and 2014. He was a Member of the European Parliament between 2019 and 2023. Earlier he was Marshal of the Sejm from 2014 to 2015. He previously served as Deputy Minister of National Defence (1992) in Jan Olszewski's cabinet, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (1998–2001) in Jerzy Buzek's cabinet and Minister of National Defence (2005–2007) in the cabinets of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and Jarosław Kaczyński.
Kamil Paweł Grosicki is a Polish professional footballer who plays as a winger for Ekstraklasa club Pogoń Szczecin and the Poland national team.
The most popular sport in Russia is soccer. According to Yandex search analysis results rating of the most popular sports among Russians: "Football topped the list of the most popular sports in Russia" with 5 to 10 million requests. Ice hockey came in second with handball, basketball, futsal, boxing, auto racing, volleyball, athletics, tennis, and chess rounding out the top ten rankings. Other popular sports include bandy, biathlon, figure skating, weightlifting, gymnastics, wrestling, martial arts, rugby union, and skiing.
Poland–Ukraine relations revived on an international basis soon after Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Various controversies from the shared history of the two countries' peoples occasionally resurface in Polish–Ukrainian relations, but they tend not to have a major influence on the bilateral relations of Poland and Ukraine.
Bartosz Kamil Kurek is a Polish professional volleyball player who plays as an opposite spiker for Wolfdogs Nagoya and the Poland national team. Kurek took part in 3 Olympic Games, and won the 2018 World Champion and the 2009 European Champion title. In 2019, he became the first ever volleyball player to be voted the Polish Sports Personality of the Year.
Dmitry Nikolayevich Chernyshenko is a Russian businessman and politician serving as Deputy Prime Minister of Russia for Tourism, Sport, Culture and Communications since 2020. Previously, he was the President of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Organizing Committee for the 2014 Winter Olympics which were held in Sochi, Russia.
Andrzej Sebastian Duda is a lawyer and politician who has served as President of Poland since 6 August 2015. Before becoming president, Andrzej Duda served as a member of the Polish Lower House (Sejm) from 2011 to 2014 and the European Parliament from 2014 to 2015.
Left Together is a left-wing political party in Poland.
Mateusz Jakub Morawiecki is a Polish economist, historian and politician who served as the prime minister of Poland between 2017 and 2023. A member of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, he previously served in the cabinet of prime minister Beata Szydło as deputy prime minister from 2015 to 2017, Minister of Development from 2015 to 2018 and Minister of Finance from 2016 to 2018. Prior to his political appointment, Morawiecki had an extensive business career.
The Republicans was a national-conservative political party in Poland, and political association.
Krzysztof Kamil Gawkowski is a Polish politician and writer, who has been serving as a Deputy Prime Minister of Poland and Minister of Digital Affairs since December 2023.
The Lublin Triangle is a regional alliance of three European countries – Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine – for the purposes of strengthening mutual military, cultural, economic and political cooperation and supporting Ukraine's integration into the European Union and NATO. The Lublin Triangle initiative invokes the integrative heritage of the 1569 Union of Lublin.
Dominika Lasota is a Polish climate justice activist who has been an active organizer in the Fridays for Future movement in Poland, at COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021 and in face-to-face talks with European leaders on climate justice and its relation to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The New York Times described her as characterising a "new brand of activist" in linking climate activism with opposition to the Russian invasion. She is a founding member of the Consultative Council, created as the result of the October 2020 Polish protests.
Events in the year 2021 in Poland.
Many states, international organizations, and civil society actors worldwide had expressed their reactions to the then-escalating crisis between Russia and Ukraine that started in March 2021. The crisis eventually culminated in a Russian invasion of Ukraine, beginning on 24 February 2022.
On 15 November 2022, a missile struck Polish territory, in the village of Przewodów near the border with Ukraine, killing two people. The incident occurred during attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure by Russia. It was the first incident of a foreign missile hitting NATO territory during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Initially Ukraine accused Russia of striking Poland, while United States claimed that the missile was likely to have been an air defence missile fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile. This was later confirmed in September 2023 by the Polish Prosecutor's Office, which stated that the explosion was caused by an out of control air-defence missile S-300.
World Boxing is an international sports organization regulating amateur (Olympic-style) boxing. It was formed in response to the International Boxing Association's (IBA) strained relationship with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). WB aims to campaign for the retention of boxing as an Olympic sport.
