One team mate recalls Pawlowski's lessons with his Hungarian coach, Janos Kevey, their blades moving so fast that even an experienced onlooker could not follow the action. Kevey took to teaching Pawlowski with sabres in each hand: "Why waste time?" he would say Pawlowski just got faster.Tales about him are legendary. Early on in his career, in a competition in Budapest before a partisan home crowd, Pawlowski was set to fight Zoltan Horvath, the Hungarian champion. The young Pole was told that if he used his usual tactics he would lose: Horvath's technical repertoire was too great. Instead, he should use his speed to get an early hit by counter-attacking to his tall opponent's head as the Hungarian came forward Then he should sit back and wait.
The crowd would get restless and taunt their champion for not finishing off this diminutive Pole. Horvath, a vain man much given to brooding when his plans went awry, would get frustrated, move too close in his anxiety to score - and then Pawlowski could trust himself to counter-attack again.The match went ahead as foreseen Pawlowski scored the first hit, then seemed to do nothing. The crowd started to chant - "Hughue, hughue, hajra!" - exhorting its man on in the words of an ancient battle cry dating back to Attila the Hun. After a few moments of chanting, Pawlowski suddenly stopped, took off his mask, and started to conduct the audience with his sabre Eventually realisation dawned. In Russian the chant, pronounced phonetically "Hughie", coincidentally means "penis", or, more accurately, "prick"; in Polish, the word is spelt "Huj", but pronounced similarly The crowd was unintentionally insulting its champion.
The fight resumed, Horvath pressed angrily forward, and Pawlowski hit him again and again, to run out an easy victor.He was not only a hero among fencers. His book on the Olympics, Trud olimpijskiego zlota ("The Burden of Olympic Gold", 1973), his regular appearances on television and his talks to sports clubs and army units made him popular all over Poland. He received the highest decorations the state could bestow, and under his auspices fencing grew into one of his country's most popular sports. He was made president of Polish fencing while still an active team member.In the mid-1960s, when he was completing his law studies, he drove around in a Mercedes 300 - the same car as the country's prime minister. He lived in the centre of Warsaw in a five-room apartment full of antique furniture, expensive books and good paintings. He spoke several languages with ease, and his mischievous charm won him friends worldwide.Pawlowski seemed never-ageing In all, he was a world finalist 17 times. In 1973 he reached the final (that is, a round-robin of six fencers) for the last time, aged 42, and only narrowly missed a medal, nearly 20 years after his first.