BITTER PILL : Poland’s Best Marathon Runner Is Serving an 18-Month Suspension, Training Determinedly for a Return

A summer storm was brewing over the vast pasturelands of Eastern Europe, but Antoni Niemczak was at peace with himself.

Here was Poland’s best marathon runner, banned until next May by the International Amateur Athletic Federation, the world governing body for track and field, but he wasn’t stewing.

“The penalty is just not justified,” said Niemczak, who has taught himself to speak a little English. “The suspension has affected me greatly, but I don’t feel guilty.”

Niemczak was not so calm last November, when he tested positive for anabolic steroids after finishing second to Gianni Poli of Italy at the New York City Marathon. The 18-month ban has cost him dearly:

--He had to forfeit his finish and an accompanying $25,000 in prize money--a fortune in economically depressed Poland.

--He had to skip the two biggest races leading to the 1988 Summer Olympics, the World Cross-Country Championships last March at Warsaw and the World Track and Field Championships last month at Rome.

--He had to endure going from national hero to national disgrace in a country where athletic performances are viewed impassionedly.

--He will have to watch Sunday’s New York City Marathon from the curbs of Manhattan instead of running past the cheering throng as he has since 1984.

All of this, Niemczak said, because he unwittingly received a shot of the steroid Nandrolin to help reduce swelling after oral surgery last October. His dentist at a Wroclaw clinic said he gave many patients that drug to accelerate healing.

IAAF officials, however, say that the reason for taking the drug is inconsequential. Traces of an illegal substance were found in Niemczak’s blood and that was reason enough to warrant the ban.

His federation subsidy of 27,000 zlotys a month--about $100 U.S. but close to the average monthly income of Polish workers--has been suspended for the duration of the ban. He must make do with a monthly salary of 15,000 zlotys from the Wroclaw military club, Slask , which he represents and where he teaches physical education.

A year ago he was jarred by the incident but now Niemczak, instead of dwelling on his misfortune, trains as if he were running a marathon tomorrow.

He runs with exhilaration and hope, pointing toward next spring, when he can select a marathon that will serve as a qualifier for the 1988 Polish Olympic team.

Such matter-of-fact acceptance goes beyond the individual, penetrating deep into the national consciousness. It cuts straight through to the very fabric that has held this country of contradiction together through centuries of conquest and partition.

Niemczak is as Polish as kielbasa and the paradoxes that make it so doggedly difficult to comprehend this land surface in his situation, on his streets, with his friends. What also arise are a sense of history and a special love of the land derived from great suffering.

The latest chapter of this saga is an economic crisis that is holding Poland down. It is nothing as despairing as what happened in Biafra or Ethiopia, but it is serious just the same. All those thousands of zlotys aren’t worth their weight in copper.

The Polish government this month has called for dramatic economic changes. In their attempt to remedy the ailing system, government officials are allowing more individual participation.

The Poles are not entirely encouraged by this invitation. They preempted the so-called Gorbachev Revolution of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) when they illegally formed labor unions and the Solidarity movement in 1980. That brought them martial law, and their depressed economy.

In the depths of such frustration comes another force that further goes against the country’s economic grain. The emergence of John Paul II, the Polish Pope, has magnified the significance of Roman Catholicism and its role in the country.

Said a member of the Polish track federation while driving through the streets of Warsaw: “The church is so strong in Poland. They usually get what they want. Look, over there they are building another church when we should be building housing, industry, a new university. But the church gets its money from the people.”

Many Communists here denounce the church publicly to retain their privileged status, but practice Catholicism privately to retain their Polishness. For here is a country that is dialectically Marxist but devotedly Catholic.

The dichotomy is not lost on Niemczak, who sees the paradoxes as obstacles to his ultimate endeavor: A world record in the marathon.

Though he is fervently Polish Catholic, he concludes that he must get out of the country to make good. He wants to train in the United States for at least a year to concentrate on running, and running alone.

“Poland is a hard place to live,” said Anna Ludwinek, Niemczak’s older sister who has emigrated to Rochester, N.Y., with her husband. Niemczak’s parents and another sister and brother remain in Poland. “Everything is expensive and you cannot buy all that you need.”

Niemczak’s list of training necessities includes nutritious food, running shoes and competition, basic athletic commodities that are hard to come by here.

“The ability to get vitamins and good food is important for a marathoner,” he said. “In America, I can do this. Here, it is a problem for me. It is always a struggle.”

He forsakes the heavy diet of potatoes, cauliflower, stew-like meat and vodka--always vodka--that is commonly found on Polish tables. He balances social etiquette with pragmatism by drinking a beer with dinner on occasion but turning down myriad after-dinner toasts of the strong Polish vodka.

Niemczak, looking for a training edge, prefers lighter meals. After a morning run of up to 15 miles he meticulously prepares a breakfast of fresh green onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and slabs of cheese, serving them as a main course with fresh bread and yogurt. He boils milk for corn flakes and hot water for tea.

A late lunch, featuring chicken or fish and cooked vegetables, is the day’s main meal. Like many Poles, though, Niemczak likes to have tea and ice cream as a mid-day snack.

He runs 120 miles a week, and the wear on his shoes is tremendous. But in Poland’s unforgiving winter, it is compounded.

“I run no matter what,” Niemczak said. “In the winter, the trails are covered with deep snow, but I must run. It is a big problem because we cannot get enough shoes. They wear out quickly in the snow, and I must sew them up to keep them from tearing apart.”

The Polish Light Athletic Federation, the country’s governing body for track and field, has contracted Adidas of West Germany to outfit its teams.

“I like some other brands that fit me better, but you cannot get them,” Niemczak said. “I can’t get enough of my own size.”

He once lost all his toenails running a marathon in a new pair of shoes that didn’t fit quite right.

But because he has competed in the West, Niemczak has been able to buy brands he prefers as any Western athlete would. He proudly parades around in Japanese running shoes and Gore-Tex sweat pants.

But material needs are not the only anchor Niemczak drags with him. He said he isn’t challenged enough in Poland. Though the country has a good corps of distance runners, Niemczak’s national marathon record of 2 hours 10 minutes 34 seconds is far off Carlos Lopes’ world record of 2:07:11.

“The way to close this gap is to train in the Rocky Mountains with faster runners,” he said. “It is what I must do.”

Until he makes his dream trip to America, he must remain in Poland and run within the system.

The frustrations that grip him can be momentarily forgotten at home with his wife and two young daughters.

They recently moved to a new apartment complex where the city is encroaching on local farmland. Because of a housing shortage, most Polish cities have constructed erector-set apartment buildings that ascend skyward like burned-out forests. Poles, known for their avant-garde poster art, have tried to brighten these bleak prefabricated structures with rainbow-hued wall graphics.

At Niemczak’s newly constructed complex, the buildings smell of plaster, the air of wild grass. A state-operated grocery store and post office are in the center of the complex. A school is under construction. A privately owned grocery store down the street advertises signs of capitalism.

Niemczak’s two-bedroom flat is easy to find. In the hallway adjacent to the door is a poster of the New York City Marathon with thousands of runners crammed onto the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Inside, it is smart and full of creature comforts such as a stereo, television, refrigerator and washing machine. His shelves hold a mixture of Polish and American products, one of the advantages of competing internationally.

The family uses the post office’s telephone to make calls and receive incoming messages. They are living like many young American families, a bit cramped, but no worse for the wear.

One Sunday morning after breakfast, a friend from Slask stopped by to show off a 35-pound carp caught at a nearby lake. He planned to serve it to guests later that evening as hors d’oeuvres. Niemczak’s life revolves around Slask , one of the country’s biggest sports clubs. It has teams in soccer, shooting, swimming, basketball, handball, volleyball and track and field, and many of its athletes compete on Polish national teams.

Later that Sunday, Slask was the host club for a national B track and field meet at its new stadium near the town’s old residential section, where stately homes symbolize a bygone era of eloquence.

These homes exist because Wroclaw, the German city of Breslau before World War II, survived the war better than most of Poland. Ancient cathedral spires and old bridges give the city a definite look of old Europe. Wroclaw, a city of bridges and islands, trails only Leningrad and Venice in bridges.

Though Niemczak could not compete at the track meet, he was an enthusiastic spectator as teammates surrounded him in the stands. Later in the meet, the Slask runners cleaned up the competition in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter races. Though soaked, they rejoiced with Niemczak in a drenching rain afterward.

These club teams have a special bond, and they share it with their city. Inhabitants of different regions follow the exploits of the clubs, which represent every major city in the country. It’s the same as the way Americans follow their professional teams.

But Niemczak’s popularity stretches beyond Wroclaw. A willow wand of a man with a shock of brown curls, Niemczak has a child-like bearing that makes him endearing. His is not the square-jawed face of the peasantry, but rather is softly aristocratic. His eyes dance, whether deep in concentration during a run or in the depths of a discussion about how many Russian troops are stationed in his country.

He is approachable. In downtown Warsaw, he is cornered and asked for his autograph.

Such response would have been difficult to fathom before 1983, when Niemczak first entered an international marathon.

He became a runner on impulse. Niemczak, a homesick private in the army in 1980, entered a four-kilometer run as an incentive to earn extra leave to visit his family in the hamlet of Pruchnik near the Soviet border. The winner got four days off.

He won the race, though he had never competed before, and caught the attention of his superiors.

At the time, the world was a bit lost upon him. He had a high school diploma in agricultural mechanics, but was not interested in fixing machines as a career. At his sister’s urging he tried to gain admission to the University of Warsaw, but failed the entrance exams. He returned to Pruchnik to work as a specialist in forests and parks before joining the armed services, mandatory for all young Polish men.

“He didn’t like the idea that he had to go into the military,” Ludwinek said. “He even saw a doctor to try to get out of service, but he was very healthy. So, he was looking for something to make it easier for him.”

Winning four days’ leave was just what he needed. He soon became the Army’s distance running champion, and upon discharge in Wroclaw, joined Slask to continue training.

“Toni was always a little different from the rest of his brothers and sisters,” Ludwinek said. “He used to play soccer all the time. His room was filled with pictures of the athletes on the walls. He cut them out of the newspapers. He used to collect the sports papers. But he never told us that he’d like to make athletics a career.”

Sports was a sometime diversion for a boy growing up on a small Polish farm. There were chores to be done first--pulling weeds and helping to clear fields for the sugar beet, potato or corn crops. Most Polish farmers did not have modern machinery 20 years ago and farmed with pikes and single-share plows as their ancestors had.

Still, Niemczak was a natural athlete. Whether he played soccer, tennis or baseball he always was one of the best in school. Track, though, was one sport in which he had no interest.

So, it was much to his family’s surprise that he became the Polish national 20-kilometer champion in 1982, and won the first marathon he entered--the 1983 Budapest Marathon--in 2:14:15.

By 1984, he was primed for the Summer Games in Los Angeles after having won national championships in the 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters and in cross-country.

But because of the Soviet Bloc boycott, he did not compete in Los Angeles. Instead, he made his American debut that fall in the New York City Marathon, finishing seventh. He returned to New York in 1985 and finished 14th on a day hotter than he was accustomed to.

He emerged as a budding star on the marathon scene in 1986 with his Polish-record run at the spring national championships, an eighth-place finish at the European Cup marathon in the summer and the second-place finish in 2:11:21 at New York in the fall.

Then he suffered his stunning fall from grace. What he assumed at first to be a testing error he now realizes was a mistake he was ultimately responsible for.

So instead of complaining, he runs, to harness his competitive spirit and to keep a clear mind. He runs for a chance to compete at Seoul.

In Poland, where the storms come hard and fast, the people have learned to weather them.

Antoni Niemczak, like his fellow Poles, keeps running through the puddles, leaping over the snowbanks and looking toward the future.

Susan Marcus, a free-lance writer from New York, contributed to this story.