Irena Szewińska (née Kirszenstein; Polish pronunciation: ; 24 May 1946 – 29 June 2018) was a Polish sprinter who was one of the world's foremost athletes for nearly two decades, in multiple events. She is the only athlete in history, male or female, to have held the world record in the 100 m, the 200 m and the 400 m. Personal life Irena Kirszenstein was born in Leningrad to a Jewish-Polish family. Her father came from Warsaw and mother from Kiev. They met in Samarkand where they studied at the time, and in 1947 moved to Warsaw. In 1967, she married her coach, Janusz Szewiński, who also competed in hurdles at the national level and later worked as a sports photographer. They have two sons, Andrzej Szewiński (born 1970), who played volleyball for the Poland men's national volleyball team and later became a senator, and Jarosław (born 1981). In 1970, Szewińska graduated from the University of Warsaw with an MSc degree in economics. On 29 June 2018, her death was announced by her husband Janusz Szewiński. She died of cancer aged 72 in Warsaw at the Military Institute of Medicine on Szaserów Street. Irena Szewińska was buried as a Catholic at the "Avenue of the Meritorious" in the Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw. In 2020, she was posthumously honoured with a World Athletics Heritage Plaque, one of the first ever awarded, during a ceremony before the Szewinska Memorial meeting in Bydgoszcz. In 2021 she was voted Polish Sportsperson of the Century by the readers of the Przegląd Sportowy magazine. During her career, she had been elected as Polish Sports Personality of the Year four times by the same magazine. Career Between 1964 and 1980 she participated in five Olympic Games, winning seven medals, three of them gold. She also broke six world records and is the only athlete (male or female) to have held a world record in the 100 m, 200 m and the 400 m events. She also won 10 medals in European Championships. Between 1965 and 1979 she gathered 26 national titles and set 38 records in the 100–400 m sprint and long jump. At her first Olympics in Tokyo in 1964, she took a silver medal in the long jump and 200 metres, and ran the second leg of the gold medal-winning 4 × 100 metres relay team. She was a double sprint winner at the