FAJDEK Pawel

General
COACHING CHANGES
After the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro he returned to his first coach Jolanta Kumor, who he had previously worked with until 2010. In October 2020 he announced that ahead of the rescheduled Olympic Games in Tokyo, he would begin training under Szymon Ziolkowski, the gold medallist at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. "I decided that it's now or never. There is no time for waiting. I was ready to change coach after the Tokyo Games, but as the Games were postponed, the changes were made earlier." In August 2020, he also left club Agros Zamosc to join AZS AWF Katowice. (sport.pl, 03 Nov 2020; radio.lublin.pl, 25 Aug 2020)

TOKYO TARGET
He says his failure to win a medal at the Olympic Games in 2012 and 2016 has made him more determined to reach the podium at the 2020 Games in Tokyo. "Third time is the charm. I keep saying this. I can honestly say that the Olympics is my only goal. I will be totally focused on winning a medal. Competing in Asia has a good influence on me, I don't lose events there. I think that it will be my place and my time. I cannot wait anymore." (sport.pl, 03 Oct 2019)

CHANGE OF DIET
While recovering from a calf injury in early 2019, he decided to change his diet, resulting in him losing 16 kilograms in one year. "I didn't train for a long time and I thought that I should take more care with my health, so I decided to change my diet and improve the condition of my body." (przegladsportowy.pl, 24 May 2019)

OTHER ACTIVITIES
In 2021 he co-founded the sports clothing label Forever Stronger alongside fellow Polish throwing athletes Konrad Bukowiecki, Piotr Malachowski and Marcin Krukowski, after they were dropped by their sponsors. "At the beginning of the season, we were left with nothing and somehow a conversation about what was next started. We are world and European champions, and Polish record holders. We didn't want to go to competitions in just any rags. The company probably thought we'd wear their stuff anyway, but that was out of the question." In 2018 he released an autobiography named 'Petarda, historie z mlotem w tle' [Firecracker, Stories with a Hammer in the Background], and says he plans to release two more books in the future. "I hope to write the second after the 2020 Olympic Games and the working title is 'Third Time is the Charm'. The third one I will start to write one day after my retirement." (sport.tvp.pl, 17 May 2021; rmf24.pl, 29 Oct 2018; pomorska.pl, 02 Nov 2018)

At the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, he became the first male athlete to win four gold medals in hammer throw at the world championships. His female compatriot, Anita Wlodarczyk, was the first athlete to achieve the feat in 2017. Fajdek, however, was the first of either gender to win four golds at consecutive editions of the tournament. (SportsDeskOnline, 28 May 2021)

At 24 years and 69 days, he became the youngest male athlete to win a gold medal in hammer throw at the world championships when he triumphed at the 2013 edition in Moscow, Russian Federation. (SportsDeskOnline, 28 May 2021)