A lawyer who served on the Polish Diet, Włodzimierz Reczek was President of the Polish Olympic Committee from 1952-73. He was also President of the Supreme Committee for Sport and Tourism in Poland, and President of the Polish Football Federation. Reczek also served as a principal of the Physical Education Academy in Katowice from 1973-82. Co-opted onto the IOC in 1961, he twice served as Chairman of the Cultural Commission (1968-72, 1974-80), was a member of the Information and Culture Commission from 1973-74, and a member of the Commission for the International Olympic Academy and Olympic Education from 1980 until he left the IOC in 1996, when he turned 85. He was then made an Honorary Member. Reczek wrote several books on tourism and the history of sport in Poland.