Poland at the 2004 Summer Olympics

Poland at the 2004 Summer Olympics
IOC code	POL
NOC	Polish Olympic Committee
Website	www.pkol.pl (in Polish)
in Athens
Competitors	194 in 21 sports
Flag bearer	Bartosz Kizierowski[1]
Medals Ranked 23rd	Gold 3 Silver 2 Bronze 5 Total 10
Summer Olympics appearances (overview)
1924 1928 1932 1936 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024
Other related appearances
Austria (1908–1912)  Russian Empire (1912)

Poland competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, from 13 to 29 August 2004. This was the nation's eighteenth appearance at the Summer Olympics, except the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, because of the Soviet boycott. The Polish Olympic Committee (Polish: Polski Komitet Olimpijski, PKO) sent a total of 194 athletes to the Games, 132 men and 62 women, to compete in 21 sports. Men's volleyball was the only team-based sport in which Poland had its representation in these Olympic Games. There was only a single competitor in women's taekwondo.

The Polish team featured six defending Olympic champions from Sydney: race walker Robert Korzeniowski, rifle shooter Renata Mauer-Różańska, rowing pair Tomasz Kucharski and Robert Sycz, and hammer throwers Kamila Skolimowska, and Szymon Ziółkowski. Greco-Roman wrestler and 1996 Olympic champion Ryszard Wolny and sprint canoeist Michał Śliwiński (previously competed for the Soviet Union, Unified Team, and Ukraine) had made their fifth Olympic appearance as the most sophisticated athletes of the team. Show jumper Grzegorz Kubiak, aged 41, was the oldest athlete of the team, while rhythmic gymnast Martyna Dąbkowska was the youngest at age 15. Swimming star Bartosz Kizierowski, who finished fifth in Sydney four years earlier in the men's 50 m freestyle, became the nation's flag bearer in the opening ceremony.^[1]

Poland left Athens with a total of ten medals, three golds, two silver, and five bronze, the lowest in Summer Olympic history since 1956.^[2] Seven of these medals were dominated by women, who constituted less than a third of all Polish athletes at these Games. Among the nation's medalists, two of them climbed the Olympic podium for the first time: Anna Rogowska, who beat her teammate Monika Pyrek to take home the bronze in women's pole vault,^[3] and Otylia Jędrzejczak, who became the most decorated Polish athlete at these Games with three medals, including the nation's first gold in swimming.^[4] Kucharski and Sycz managed to repeat their golden streak in the men's double sculls, while Korzeniowski ended an illustrious Olympic career with a historic milestone as the first athlete to defend his Olympic title in men's 50 km race walk for the third consecutive time.^[5]