The confusing case of Stella Walsh...

Posted July 13th, 2009

By Mike Rizzuto
Sun TImes Editor

There are few athletes that can rival the strange story of Stella Walsh.

Walsh (real name Stanislawa Walasiewicz) was born April 3, 1911 in Wierzchownia, Poland. Her family emigrated to the United States and settled in Cleveland, Ohio when she was only three months old.

Stella started her athletic career in public school. Fast and agile, in 1927 she easily won the competition for a place on the American Olympic team.

However, Walsh was not an American citizen and could not obtain citizenship under the age of 21. So she decided to compete for her native Poland and began training in meets overseas before the Olympic Games started.

During the Pan-Slavic Slet Games in Pozna, she scored her first major international victories. She won five gold medals in the 60, 100, 200 and 400 meters, as well as long jump. She was asked to stay in Poland and join the Polish national athletic team, which she did.

In the 1932 Summer Olympics, in both the heats and the semifinals of the 100 meters, Walsh equaled the current world record of 11.9 seconds, a feat she repeated in the final, which she won. The same day, she also finished 6th out of nine in the discus to score even more points.

Upon her return to Poland, she became a well-known personality. She was welcomed by gigantic crowds in the port of Gdynia, and a few days later, was awarded the Golden Cross of Merit for her achievements. She was also again chosen the most popular Polish person in sports and held that title for three years.

In the spring of the next year, Walsh appeared at the Championships of Warsaw, where she seized an amazing nine gold medals. On September 17th, she erased two world records in one day: 7.4 seconds for 60 meters and 11.8 seconds for 100 meters. A week later, she beat her own lifetime record of 7.3 for 60 meters.

In the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, she attempted to defend her Olympic title, but was beaten by Helen Stephens of the United States in a monumental upset. Walsh came in second in 11.7 seconds. Fans were so irate that they accused Stephens of being male and forced her to submit to a genital inspection. Stephens was inspected and declared a real female.

After the Olympic Games, Walsh continued to appear at various championships, but the days of her spectacular successes were mostly over. In 1947, she finally accepted American citizenship and married boxer Neil Olson. Although the marriage did not last long, she continued to use the name Stella Walsh Olson for the rest of her life.

Walsh-Olson won her last U.S. title at age forty, in 1951, and she was inducted into the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975. She was regarded as a celebrity for her many feats attained.

After her retirement, she continued to be active in a variety of Polish sport associations in the U.S., where she organized championships and helped young athletes. She also funded a variety of awards for Polish sports people living in America.

But tragedy would strike Walsh many years later and make her famous (or infamous) once again around the world.
Walsh was a bystander in an armed robbery in Cleveland, Ohio on December 4, 1980, and was shot and killed at the age of 69. When her autopsy was completed, it showed she possessed male genitalia!

Yes, Stella Walsh was really a man, at least when viewed with the “naked eye.”

However, some sources still maintain she displayed some female characteristics. And detailed investigation revealed that she had both an XX and an XY pair of chromosomes.

The controversy on her gender remains unresolved, and the situation is further complicated by the fact that many earlier documents, including her birth record, state that she was female. There is still some controversy as to whether all her track records and achievements should be erased.

The case of Stella Walsh is often regarded as one of the reasons why the IOC has gradually dropped gender determination tests. In the end, such a requirement was dropped prior to the 2000 Summer Olympics, as it was decided that genetic gender is not necessarily equal to social or biological gender.

In Cleveland, on Broadway Avenue, there is a city-owned recreational center named after Stella Walsh. It is attached to Cleveland South High School. She is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Cleveland.

And, as the late, great Paul Harvey might have said, “now you know the rest of the story.”