Justyna Kowalczyk

Born in Limanowa, Southern Poland, Kowalczyk took up cross country skiing at the age of 10. She then competed in her first FIS World Cup race at Cogne (ITA) in December 2001.

In 2002 she came second in the individual sprint at the World Junior Championships. She finished 31st in the individual sprint event at the 2003 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. Recently in Canmore, Canada, on 22 January 2008, Justyna Kowalczyk won the race for her second World Cup triumph. She followed in Canmore with two more bronze medals in the same World Cup event. Kowalczyk was 3rd in the 2007 World Cup. She has also won thirty individual events at various distances and levels since 2001.

At the 2005 World Championships, Kowalczyk competed but was subsequently disqualified for taking dexamethasone at the Under23 (U23) OPA (Alpine Nations) Intercontinental Cup competition in Oberstdorf, Germany back on 23 January 2005. Dexamethason is a substance that is allowed Out-of-Competition but prohibited In-Competition. It acts as an anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressant. Kowalczyk used the substance to alleviate an Achilles tendon condition.

On 13 June 2005, the FIS Doping Panel issued a two-year suspension (23 January 2005 – 22 January 2007) for Kowalczyk. In late June 2005 FIS determined that since dexamethasone was a glucocorticosteroid, it was classified as a specified substance on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) list of prohibited substances, and therefore the period of ineligibility for the first violation is at a maximum, one year's ineligibility. The FIS Doping Panel therefore reduced the suspension to one year.

At the 2009 world championships in Liberec, Kowalczyk won two gold medals, one in the women's pursuit (7.5 km classical + 7.5 km free technique), and another one in the 30 km mass start. She also secured a bronze medal in the 10 km classical event.

She won the overall 2008–09 Cross-Country Skiing World Cup. On 24 March 2009, Kowalczyk was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

On 27 February 2010, Kowalczyk beat Norway's Marit Bjørgen by 0.3 seconds to win the gold medal in the women's 30 km classical event in the 2010 Winter Olympics. She posted a time of one hour, 30 minutes, 33.7 seconds. She earned two more medals in Vancouver, taking silver behind Bjørgen in the individual sprint classic on 17 February 2010, and bronze in the 15 km pursuit on 19 February 2010.

Kowalczyk criticized Marit Bjørgen and other competitors during the Olympic Games in 2010 for using anti-asthma drugs. Bjørgen won five medals in the Olympics, three of them gold. The drug is allowed by FIS if prescribed by an Olympic team physician. Kowalczyk later apologized for the timing of her statements, since the Games were still going on at the time. The asthma medication Marit Bjørgen is using, Symbicort, has since been removed from WADA's list of banned substances.

Kowalczyk won the 10 km classical race in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi on a broken foot. She did not finish 30 km freestyle race.

Kowalczyk graduated from the Jerzy Kukuczka University of Physical Education in Katowice with an M.A. and a Ph.D. degree in physical education in 2014 at the Bronisław Czech University of Physical Education in Kraków, where her dissertation was titled "The structure and volume of training load cross-country skiing on the background of the evolution of technology gear and different levels of sports".

On 22 February 2015 won bronze medal of the World Championship 2015 in team sprint with Sylwia Jaśkowiec in Falun, Sweden.

She won the Vasaloppet ski marathon in 2015 with a time of 4:41:02. She also won the Birkebeinerrennet long-distance cross-country ski marathon held annually in Norway in 2017 and 2018.