With a career that is assuming the overtones of a great tragedy, Polish weightlifting phenom Szymon Kolecki continues to be plagued by back problems and today his coach said that Kokecki would not start in the Athens Olympics.

Kolecki is a weightlifter of rare talent, whose lifting resumé already includes world records, world championship medals and an Olympic silver medal from the Sydney Games.

Despite those glowing successes, ongoing back problems have limited his competitive career to a shadow of what it already might have been, and for Kolecki to miss Athens is supremely disappointing for him, his coach and his many fans around the world.

Earlier this year, things were looking up for the personable Polish weightlifting star, and as first reported here in March, "Lifting in a small meet, Poland's Szymon Kolecki kicked off the year with a huge 195-kg snatch and a 240-kg clean and jerk, prompting informed speculation that he was on course to break the world record in the clean and jerk in the 105-kg category.

Unfortunately, the back problems that have been hampering what would otherwise be a brilliant weightlifting career recurred and Kolecki, at the moment at least, will not start at the upcoming European Weightlifting Championships (Kiev, Ukraine), saving himself, instead, for the Olympic Games this summer in Athens."
Now, regrettably, it looks like Athens is out of the question, too.