Breaking Away: The story of one cyclist’s flight from communist Poland to an Austrian refugee camp and eventually, America

In 1984, Poland was still very much in the iron grip of Soviet influence. Red flags rippled atop dull, grey buildings, Russian tanks idled in city squares, store shelves stood half empty, and the state-controlled media churned out little more than propaganda.

As a teenager, Waldemar “Waldek” Stepniowski was aware of the restrictions of Eastern Bloc life, but he largely shrugged them off. “I was doing my thing. I was riding my bike, and it didn't matter if there were tanks on the road or not. We were just having fun, riding bikes,” he recalled.

But as he grew older, Waldek and his friends started dreaming of faraway places, of a life beyond the Iron Curtain. “I think I thought there was more out there for me than this small country with borders everywhere,” Waldek said. “We couldn't really travel. It was definitely a third-world Russian regime, where everybody watches every move that you make.”

The communist regime was watchful and demanding, although Waldek’s talent on a bike earned him rare privileges. At 19, while others his age were drafted into the Polish People's Army for mandatory service, Waldek was selected to don a sporting uniform instead, representing Poland at international cycling competitions. Still, the shadow of conscription loomed. The army would come calling eventually.

When Waldek was selected to compete at the Internationaler Gatterbauerfenster Rundfahrt in Austria in August 1984, he didn’t see it as a stepping stone in his cycling career; he saw it as a rare chance to break free. Waldek explained that being part of his national team “was awesome,” but it wasn’t enough. “I knew there was more out there… freedom,” he said. “I had family in the USA, and the things—the pictures—they were sending, the freedom they represented… it was just something like a magnetic feeling, like I had to experience that. I needed to go and pursue it.”

America was the big dream, but getting there would mean defecting. Waldek and his friends had heard the whispered stories. Olympians vanishing during competitions, heading west, never to be seen again. “It wasn’t uncommon so we knew about it,” Waldek said. “It sounded like something we wanted to do.”

They may have heard about it. But they knew very little. This was the 1980s: long before one could turn to Google for answers. And they certainly weren’t going to find a ‘How to Defect’ guidebook in the party-controlled libraries, either. There were no instructions, no contacts: just rumors and resolve. They told no one—not parents, not friends, not coaches. Waldek didn’t know what the penalty for attempted defection was, but he figured it would be “severe.” “Military most likely,” he said.

The Escape

In early August 1984, Waldek traveled to the Austrian stage race alongside teammates Robert Policht, Miroslaw Pawlowski and Tadeusz Paweszka. Three of them wanted to try to make a break for it. The fourth, Tadeusz, couldn’t; he had a wife and child at home, tethering him to Poland. At the time, border crossings meant emptying your duffel bag and displaying every single item for inspection. All they were allowed to bring were a couple of race kits, a team-issue tracksuit, and a few souvenirs – traditional Polish crystal or porcelain, meant for trading with other athletes.

There was no hiding a wad of cash or mementoes from home, and packing extra clothing—say, enough to survive an Austrian winter—would certainly have set off alarm bells. Worse still, a government chaperone clung to the team like a shadow and held a tight grip on everyone’s paperwork and passports, a system designed to strip athletes of a chance, or temptation, to defect. But if the young men showed any nerves as they crossed the border, it could have easily been dismissed as pre-race jitters.

The race began. One stage, then another. What happened during those days is all but forgotten. The attacks, the sprints, the fight for GC placement all faded into the background. With every finish line crossed, there was one less day to make their escape. But they’d made a plan. A very loose and entrusting one, but a plan nonetheless. They’d heard of a refugee camp near Vienna, Traiskirchen, which was the largest refugee camp in Austria, housing sometimes as many as 4,000 people. But it was a five-hour drive away, and they had no vehicle, no contacts, no money and no German language skills. They needed to find a ride.

And so, before the second stage began, the trio covertly approached a young Austrian couple, spectators at the race. “We couldn't even speak the language, but we somehow explained to them that we wanted to go to the refugee camp,” Waldek said. They offered them everything they had. Porcelain, crystals, the literal Polska tracksuits on their bodies. The trinkets intended for some friendly exchanges between athletes becoming the currency of their freedom. Maybe it was the urgency in their eyes. Maybe the couple had seen enough newsreels of Eastern Bloc defectors to recognize the stakes. Whatever it was, they understood. And they agreed.

But first: the passport.

“Without passports, you're nobody,” Waldek said. “How would you even prove who you are? Or request asylum?” When the team coaches and the government official headed to a mandatory race meeting in the afternoon, Waldek and his teammates seized their chance. They broke into the chaperone's room, hearts pounding as if they were still mid-race, rifling through the drawers in a frantic search. Once they found their most prized possessions, they jumped through the window and began their bid for freedom. Dressed in jeans and a thin jacket, they could have been any other young Austrians, there to watch the race. They headed toward the meeting point, relieved to find the couple waiting, just as promised, with no one else in sight.

Smuggling defectors

The three grown men wedged themselves into the back seat of a tiny, old car. The engine started. They were on their way. But the ride was tense and nervous. There would have been trouble for everyone should they get caught. Austria was generally sympathetic to those in pursuit of freedom, but aiding fugitives could still be considered a violation of immigration laws. No one said a word. They wouldn’t have been able to communicate anyway.

Time dragged by. At some point, the driver veered off the main road, headed into a small town and located a phone booth. Coins went in, and a hushed conversation in gibberish followed. “We were just freaked out,” Waldek said. “They’re calling the police for sure.” They couldn't ask. Couldn't understand. Couldn’t turn back.

These phone calls happened several times. Each time, the driver got back in the car and continued west. In hindsight, Waldek believes the couple was probably just trying to get directions and avoiding getting caught smuggling defectors. Eventually, the car summited a hill and pulled over. Below, silhouetted against the night, was a looming structure, half castle, half military complex.
The driver got out, pointed and said, “That’s you. Camp.”

Rejection

The Austrian couple didn’t dare drive all the way up to the camp. So, under the cover of the evening darkness, the three young men walked the remainder of the way, arriving at the gate with nothing but the clothes on their backs. “We didn’t even know if it was the right place,” Waldek said. “It looked like a military complex. There was a guy with a gun at the checkpoint, just staring at us, like ‘What do you want?’”

They had reached a critical threshold. If they were accepted and allowed through the gate, they would fall under international protection, safeguarded by refugee law and beyond the reach of Polish authorities. But on this side of the fence, they remained exposed. Vulnerable. If the police intercepted them now, they would be detained, sent back, punished.

The three fugitives were exhausted, drained by anxiety, uncertainty and the string of hurdles they’d cleared just to make it this far. But the guard was unmoved. Without the means to communicate, the men were turned away. They would have to come back in the morning, when there surely would be other Polish-speaking refugees around. They made their way to a nearby train station and spent the night curled up on the benches, shivering beneath discarded newspapers.

Just before dawn, they were roused by the shouting, laughter, and staggering footsteps of a drunken group of men returning from a night out in the city. These weren’t just any men; they were other Polish refugees, already in possession of the necessary papers that allowed them to come and go from the camp as they pleased. And they were more than willing to help the young racers plead their case with the stoic guard. This time, the three newcomers were granted entry. “You walk in wanting to start a new life,” Waldek said. “But you have no clue what you're walking into.”

Camp Life

Reality hit hard for the dreamers. The first three days in the refugee camp were spent in isolation, sequestered from the rest of the complex while authorities verified identities and ran background checks. “All we could do was look at the window and then communicate with other Polish immigrants somewhere two floors below, just yelling information back and forth,” Waldek recalled. “We got to eat, but no TV, nothing. We were just in this room. We didn't know what was going on for three days.”

On the third day, a fellow Polish immigrant shouted up to them: the Polish coaches had stopped by the camp, looking for them. When more than half the team failed to show up at the start line for the third stage of the race, it quickly became clear what had happened, and news crews picked up the story. “One of the guys was like, ‘Don’t worry, you’re famous. We saw you on TV!’” Waldek recounted. “That helped us a little, because people at the camp already knew who we were.” Not criminals, just three young men chasing a new life away from political oppression.

With their identities verified, Waldek, Robert, and Miroslaw were released from isolation and joined the general camp population—a world unto itself. If they had ever paused to imagine what refugee life might be like, it certainly wasn’t this. Their new reality was a crowded, chaotic dormitory packed with twenty men to a room, triple-tiered bunk beds lining the walls. Tensions were high; fights broke out frequently, and petty crime was rampant. “It wasn't the best environment for younger people,” Waldek acknowledged. “You bump into a lot of different elements of life.”

The camp’s population reflected the turmoil of Cold War Europe: Hungarians fleeing Soviet retaliation, Yugoslavs escaping the slow collapse of their federation, Romanians driven out by Ceaușescu’s brutal regime. The riders even made some new friends who built their own balloon and flew it over the mountains from Czechoslovakia to Austria. But seeking asylum was a long, slow, and arduous process. Months or even years could pass while paperwork was processed, sponsors secured, and host countries deliberated over whether to take you in.

“Life in the camp... it was probably the lowest valley I have ever been to,” Waldek shared. “You start drinking and you're surrounded with so much depression and the drama around it that eventually, we kind of fell into the depression of everybody else.” The only thing that kept him grounded was the daily ritual of packing a small lunch and crossing to the other side of the camp fence, where Austrian farmers and construction crews sought cheap, under-the-table labor.

The little, inconsistent income they earned went mostly toward calling family and contacting anyone overseas who might help with the asylum process. It wasn’t until he had earned his first few Austrian schillings that he could call home. By then, his parents already knew about his decision to defect. Government officials had visited the house. There had been veiled threats and false claims that the riders had stolen their racing bikes, which were government property. But once one of the coaches came forward with the truth, the authorities left the families alone.

Still, there were a lot of tears. His mother was worried, consumed by the unknown and the fear she might never see her son again. His father, on the other hand, saw things differently. His side of the family was already living in the United States, and he could see the path forward. Waldek relied heavily on his U.S.-based relatives to move the asylum process along, to serve as his sponsor and to help find sponsors for his teammates. But communication was difficult, costly and achingly slow. Fortunately, one of Waldek’s camp friends had an unconventional workaround.

“He was probably not the most legal kind of guy. It was the guy who never left the camp because they wouldn't let him leave,” Waldek said with a laugh. Late at night, the group of men would sneak into the vineyards with a roll of cable, a phone-like device, and a cable box. They’d break into a phone line, stretch the cable some 50 feet away, and dial the numbers of their loved ones. “It was just so illegal. It's so embarrassing and scary as hell, because we could have been thrown in jail,” Waldek said. “But you’re desperate. You’re just trying to reach out to somebody like, ‘help me, help me. I need to get out of this camp because it's killing me’.”

But when speaking with his mother, Waldek spared her the darker realities of refugee life. He told his parents what they needed to hear: that he and the others had food, clothing, and, sometimes, a bit of work. Enough, even, to send home a small care package now and then. Some bananas, some chocolate—luxuries to reassure his mom he was doing okay. “It's hard for us to imagine, but the place I left from, literally, the stores were empty. There was nothing on the shelves. You walk in the store and you could buy only vodka,” Waldek said.

By comparison, Austrian supermarkets felt like mirages. “Your eyes were just blown away: everything is in the store. As long as you have money, you could buy everything,” Waldek recalled. Every trip to a store gave him a glimmer of hope, a reassurance that they were enduring this for a reason. “It definitely helped us keep it positive along the way.” After eight long months, the paperwork finally came through. Sponsored by his family, Waldek was headed to Longmont, Colorado, to live with his cousin. Robert and Miroslaw would join him, thanks to sponsorships from a local Lutheran church.

A Fresh Start

On March 27, 1985, Waldek, Miroslaw, and Robert flew to the United States. They had a layover at JFK Airport in New York before continuing on to their new home in Colorado. Waldek’s entire world fit into a small bag filled with odds and ends, a jacket, and twenty U.S. dollars. They didn’t speak English, didn’t really know anyone and were once again starting their lives from scratch. Life one had been in Poland. Life two, the refugee camp. And now, a third life, in America. Though they were only twenty years old, they carried the weariness and life experience of men twice their age.

Those first few weeks in the U.S. were “definitely not what I expected,” Waldek remembered. “We all expected, like we'll just come in and dollar bills are just going [to] rain down from the sky. But right away, we learned very quickly that to make $4 an hour, you have to work hard.” In those early days, Waldek worked as a car mechanic, and thanks to donations from the local community, he was soon back on a race bike as well.

“All three of us got some kind of job. We found an apartment. We moved in together, we started training together, riding together,” Waldek said. But a fourth life as pro cyclists wasn’t in the cards for them. “We tried to race for a bit, making our way through the ranks—cat 4, cat 3, cat 2, cat 1. But it was really difficult not having a sponsor, and we just didn't have the money to keep going to races,” Waldek said.

Eventually, racing became just a passion project, something he did on weekends, around his regular job. That’s when he met a French cyclist, James Collignon. James had big plans. Giving up on becoming a professional rider himself, he wanted to work for Europe’s top cycling teams as a soigneur, but first, he needed credentials. He was headed to massage school in Tampa, Florida, and encouraged Waldek to join him. But Waldek declined. “I thought I had totally made it in America. I just bought my first condo and had a nice car,” Waldek said. In reality, he hadn’t found a slice of the American dream; he had merely discovered the American credit system.

When James returned six months later and pointed this out, Waldek decided to start over yet again. He sold his BMW and his condo, paid off his debts, and bought “the only car in the junkyard he could afford.” In a rebuilt, spray-painted VW Rabbit, he packed up the remainders of his life and drove to Florida to enrol. James went on to fulfil his vision, working in the cycling industry for over two decades, serving some of the biggest teams in the sport as an osteopath and physiotherapist.

Waldek’s career followed a similar track. After finishing massage school and returning to Colorado, he was hired by Eddy Borysiewicz, a coach at the Olympic Training Center and fellow Polish émigré, to work with the U.S. National Team. That initial “learning opportunity” launched a 33-year career in professional cycling at its highest levels. From the national track program to Lance Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Service team, and most defining of all, two decades of leading the legendary CLIF Bar program, home to world champions and Olympians like Georgia Gould, Catharine Pendrel and Katerina Nash.

Today, his Colorado home resembles a cycling museum. The walls and shelves stacked with mementoes: rainbow-striped world champion jerseys, Olympic accreditation passes, medals draped over lamp fixtures, stacks of race numbers, old team jackets, yellowed newspaper clippings, signed photographs, a bumper sticker from some long-forgotten tour, trophies and thank-you gifts from his favorite riders. Everywhere one looks, there are traces of a 33-year career spent behind the scenes, helping others rise to greatness.

Somehow, the young man who arrived in America with just twenty dollars, a jacket, and a dream became a cornerstone of American cycling history. The American Dream? “Yes, we definitely experienced a piece of it,” Waldek said, reflecting on his journey. “But really, it was always the bike. The bike was always the instigator of my next step. The driving force that gave me all these opportunities, opened all these doors in life.”

Now, for the first time in over three decades, Waldek is taking a bit of a break. After finishing his last stint with the Giant Factory Off-Road Team in the fall, he’s finding himself with a rare season off. In the winter, he taught ski lessons to children. In the spring, he watched his youngest get married and start a life of his own. In the summer, he hopes to race some mountain bike events. He’s not sure what comes next, but if life has shown him anything, it’s that when the time is right, the bike will lead him there.