The Polish star couldn't take it anymore. "You're making us cannon fodder"

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Pyciak-Peciak competed in modern pentathlon. As a representative of the Polish national team, he became the Olympic champion in Montreal in 1976, and a year later he won his first gold medal at the world championships. He was repeatedly selected among the ten best Polish athletes in the "Przegląd Sportowy" plebiscite. He took first place twice - in 1977 and 1981.

The Olympic champion was born in 1949 in Warsaw. His birth certificate was written as "Janusz Gerard Pyciak vel Peciak". In a 2019 interview with Onet, he explained the unusual format of the surname. "Dad went to France to work and World War II caught up with him there. He was wounded and the blood stained the documents so much that they couldn't read his surname in the hospital," Peciak recalled in an interview with Onet. His father, Stefan, fought in the Home Army under the pseudonym "Szary", and after the war he was unable to change the incorrectly written documents, which affected his son's surname. It was only years later that Janusz returned to his original surname Peciak.

Little Janusz grew up in difficult conditions, spending his childhood in the ruins of post-war Warsaw. He began training for modern pentathlon, a discipline that required versatility: horse riding, fencing, shooting, swimming and running. After only eight years of training, in 1976 he won the Olympic gold medal in Montreal, defeating the world's top athletes.

Peciak competed in the Olympics three times: in Munich (1972), where an unlucky shooting incident (a jammed pistol) deprived him of his chances for a medal, in Montreal (1976), where he won individual gold, and in Moscow (1980), where he took 6th place individually and the team was fourth. He was also a five-time world champion (1977, 1978, 1981 – individually and as a team) and an eight-time Polish champion (1974–1977, 1980–1983).

He planned to end his career by competing at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The decision of the Polish People's Republic authorities to boycott the event thwarted his plans. The boycott was the Eastern Bloc's response to the boycott of the Moscow Games in 1980 by the United States and other Western countries, which protested the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As was the case with most important decisions made by the Polish People's Republic authorities, the decision to boycott was made in the Kremlin.

On May 17, 1984, a meeting was held at the headquarters of the Polish Olympic Committee on Frascati Street in Warsaw, to which leading Polish athletes and coaches were invited, including Irena Szewińska, Bogusław Mamiński, and Grzegorz Skrzecz. "We guessed that they had gathered us to say that Poland would boycott the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. And when we saw the Soviet comrades, we were almost certain," Peciak recalled in an interview with Sport.pl. The presence of Marat Gramov, the head of the Soviet Olympic Committee, confirmed that the decision had been imposed from Moscow.

When the decision was officially announced, Pycia was the only one who had the courage to publicly protest. "I said: 'You're using us as cannon fodder, you're using us to settle your political affairs,'" he said in an interview with Sport.pl. He argued that the athletes had spent years preparing, and the political decision took away their chance to compete. "The trick is to go to the Olympic Games and compete in difficult conditions," he argued.

His position was supported by Irena Szewińska, who as a sportswoman understood the drama of the competitors. "She said that she was also an athlete and understood me because she was aware of what it was like when a person devoted so many years to preparation and suddenly someone took away their chance to play."

Peciak's protest was a brave act in the realities of the Polish People's Republic, where opposing the authorities could have serious consequences. "I risked a lot. I trained in Legia Warsaw, and it was a military club, so I could have gotten my ears kicked," he admitted in an interview with "Przegląd Sportowy". His statement was broadcast by American stations, including NBC, which caused reactions from the Polish diaspora. "Shortly afterwards I got a few calls from my compatriots in the US. They asked if they had already locked me up," he recalled with a smile. Despite pressure from the military authorities and the Ministry of Sport, Peciak did not give in, although he did not change the decision of the Polish Olympic Committee.

Competitors such as Władysław Kozakiewicz and the volleyball and handball teams lost their chance at medals. The Eastern Bloc countries organized alternative competitions, "Friendship-84", but they were only a substitute for Olympic competition.

Peciak's protest did not go unnoticed. Although it did not change the authorities' decision, it showed that even in the realities of the Polish People's Republic it was possible to express one's own opinion. A year after the boycott, in 1985, Peciak emigrated to the USA, where he continued his coaching career. "The condition was that I would pay $1,500 every month to the Ministry of Sport. It was a lot of money, the average salary in Poland was $40," he admitted. This meant that each month he sent home the equivalent of three years' average salary in Poland.

Peciak settled in Denver. There he ran a fencing school and trained the American pentathlete team, including Margaux Isaksen. He also worked with the epee team, and his charges won medals at the world championships. In 2021, he became the president of the Polish Modern Pentathlon Association.