Beata Mikolajczyk
- Country
- Poland
- Club
- UKS Kopernik Bydgoszcz (career club; retired from competition in November 2020)
- Born
- 1985-10-15
Beata Mikołajczyk-Rosolska stands among the greatest names in Polish kayaking history: a three-time Olympic medallist who reached the podium at every Games she entered. Born on 15 October 1985 in Bydgoszcz, she stayed loyal to her home city throughout her career, coming up through local clubs including UKS Kopernik Bydgoszcz. The women's K2 500 m was her signature event. In Beijing in 2008 she won Olympic silver alongside Aneta Konieczna; four years later in London, now partnered with Karolina Naja, she took bronze, and in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 the same crew climbed onto the third step of the podium once more. Beyond the Olympics she was crowned world champion in the K2 1000 m in 2009 and added further world championship silver and bronze medals in the K2 200 m, K2 500 m and K4 500 m between 2011 and 2014. Five European titles came her way between 2005 and 2015, the first of them in the K4 1000 m at a home championships in Poznań while she was still a teenager. She retired in November 2020, after a quarter of a century in the sport, to devote herself to her family; away from the water she is married to fellow kayaker Rafał Rosolski. Her decade at the heart of Poland's K2 remains the benchmark against which the country's women's crew boats are measured.