Ryszard Szurkowski

Ryszard Jan Szurkowski was a Polish road bicycle racer, widely regarded as a legend of the sport in Poland. Born on 12 January 1946, he was a silver medalist in the team time trial at the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics and won three gold medals at the World Cycling Amateur Championships, two in 1973 including the individual road race, and one in 1975. He won the Peace Race four times, in 1970, 1971, 1973 and 1975, and took Dookola Mazowsza twice, in 1977 and 1978. From 1998 he ran a bicycle shop in Warsaw. He suffered a serious crash in Germany in 2018 and died on 1 February 2021, twenty days after his 75th birthday.