Stanisława Walasiewicz

Staininisława Walasiewicz, European Athletics Championships, Vienna 1938

Stanislawa Walasiewicz (for Marriage Stella Walsh Olson * 11 April 1911 in Wierzchownia , Powiat Brodnickie †; 4. December 1980 in Cleveland , Ohio ) was an intersex Polish - American track and field athlete and Olympic champion .

Life

Walasiewicz was born in what was then the Weichselland . Her parents emigrated to the United States when Walasiewicz was two years old. She repeatedly tried to get US citizenship . She was only given the prospect of it when she, starting under the name Stella Walsh , developed into a top-class sprinter. However, through the mediation of the Polish consulate in New York, she decided to take Polish citizenship and soon became one of the most popular personalities in Polish sports.

In the 100-meter run of the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles , she was able to set the world record of 11.9 s both in the run-up and in the semifinals. She reached the same time in the final and was Olympic champion with a new Olympic record ahead of the Canadian Hilda Strike and the American Wilhelmina von Bremen . On the same day, Walasiewicz also competed in the final of the discus throw and finished 6th there.

At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin , Walasiewicz tried to defend her title. There she was defeated by the American Helen Stephens . At the European Championships in 1938 , she won over 100 and 200 meters and won two silver medals in the 4 x 100 meter relay and in the long jump.

After the end of the Second World War, Walasiewicz started at the European Championships in Oslo in 1946 . She was eliminated from both sprint routes in the semifinals and finished last among six teams with the relay.

In 1947 she finally received US citizenship. In the same year she married the boxer Neil Olson. Although the marriage did not last long, she kept the name Stella Walsh Olson for the rest of her life . In 1951, at the age of 40, she won her last title at the US track and field championships.

On December 4, 1980, Walsh was shot dead as a passerby in an armed robbery in Cleveland. Her autopsy revealed that Walsh was intersex based on her male reproductive organs . Ironically, in the 1930s, a Polish journalist suspected her fiercest rival, Helen Stephens , of secretly being a man.

See also

• Heinrich Ratjen
• Third gender
• Gender verification in sports

Web links

• Stanisława Walasiewicz in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Stella Walsh. Hall of Fame. (No longer available online.) In: USA Track & Field. Archived from the original on March 28, 2019 . 

• Stanislawa Walasiewicz in the database of Find a Grave (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Stanisława Walasiewicz. (No longer available online.) In: bieganie.com.pl. Formerly in the original ; accessed on June 29, 2019 (Polish, no mementos ).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )   .
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Stanislawa Walasiewicz. Encyclopædia Britannica . Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012, accessed January 3, 2012.
3. ↑ ABC Radio National : The Sports Factor: Olympic ideals and realities - from the sublime to the ridiculous ( Memento of December 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). In: abc.net.au, July 17, 1998, accessed on June 29, 2019 (English).
4. ↑ Jim White: 'Of course he is not a Nazi. He is a man who likes history '. In: The Guardian . January 20, 2003, accessed January 3, 2012.
5. ↑ Associated Press : Report Says Stella Walsh; Had Male Sex Organs. In: The New York Times . January 23, 1981, accessed January 3, 2012.