WHERE ARE THEY NOW
ROMAN JANKOWSKI
Roman Jankowski was born 5 October 1957 in Koscian, Poland. In England Roman was one of the most popular Hawks ever. He started riding in 1976 and rode until 2006. He is a former Polish Champion, having won the title in 1981 and again in 1988.
Roman has also represented Poland in the World Team Cup. He rode for the Hackney in 1981 and 1982. Currently he is the team manager of Unia Tarnów.
He made 3 world final appearances in
1987 - Amsterdam, Olympic Stadium - 14th - 8pts
1988 - Vojens, - 16th -2pts
1994 - Vojens, - Reserve - 0pts
His Polish league statistics make impressive reading and spending virtually his whole career with Leszno. His Polish career statistics can be found on the following link http://speedway.com.pl/riders/roman-jankowski/
Roman's has three sons, LÂukasz, Marcin and Norbert are all speedway riders.
In 2005 Roman published an autobiography, shame it’s not in English!
Paul Tadman writes
Roman Jankowski, Polish Legend!
After missing the bus after the Golden Helmet meeting in Pardubice in
October 2006, we met a group of Polish fans from Leszno.
The starting point of our hour-long conversation waiting for a bus [you
thought Transport for London was bad] was a Leszno scarf, wrapped
round one of the fans. In my best Polish I said ‘Roman Jankowski’ I had learnt to speak fluent Polish, well riders names, [someone tell Ken Tozer at Wimbledon] when Hackney had several Poles riding for them in the seventies and eighties at ‘The Wick’
Roman Jankowski only recently stopped riding and he still is adored at his club Leszno. Our Polish friends called him ‘God’. I suppose he is the equivalent of Thommo!
Roman has done an autobiography, and has some unseen pictures of him in Hackney colours. Trouble is it’s all in Polish!
They were a lovely bunch of people, and a treasure to their country.
Below are a couple of photos of our friends from Leszno.
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