The first Polish female to win the Olympic gold medal

Leonarda Kazimiera Konopacka-Matuszewska-Szczerbińska was born on 26 February 1900 in Rawa Mazowiecka. Her interest in sports came from her family home. When she studied Polish at the University of Warsaw, she enrolled in the track and field sports section of the University Sports Association (AZS) Warsaw. Her talent for sports was appreciated in 1923 by French coach Maurice Baquet, under whose direction she developed skills in discus throw, javelin throw, shot put, high jump and long jump. In a short time she won 27 titles of the Polish Champion. Her greatest sporting achievement was winning the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928, where she also won the title of the Miss of the Olympics. In addition to sports, she was engaged in poetry and painting. During the Second World War, she took part in the daring rescue of 75 tonnes of Poland's gold, organised by her husband, the Minister of the Treasury, Ignacy Matuszewski.  In 1941 she emigrated to New York, where her husband founded the Józef Pilsudski Institute of America and soon died. After his death she married the tennis player Józef Szczerbinski, who ran a Cepelia shop, and she became a painter. She died on 28 January 1989 in Daytona Beach, Florida. In 2018 upon the motion of the Polish Olympic Committee she was posthumously awarded the Order of the White Eagle.

The exhibition was prepared by the Hipolit Cegielski Complex of Transportation Schools in Poznań.