Olympic Profiles-The Gal With A Little Something Extra

Meet Stella Walsh:
She was born in Poland in 1911 and her name before it got Americanized when she came to the USA was Stanislawa Walasiewiczowna. Stella moved to the USA with her parents at the tender age of 3. As she grew and became assimilated to her new home she took to athletics, particularly track and field events. By the time she graduated high school it was obvious that she was a world class sprinter. She was considered the fastest woman in the world in the early 1930's.

As the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles neared Stella's life took an eventful turn. She wanted very badly to compete in the games for her adopted country, the USA, but since she would not be 21, the age when it was legal back then to become a naturalized citizen, by the time the women's track and field trials were going to be held the United States Olympic Committee told her she was ineligible to compete for the USA.

But even as things looked bleak, Stella was not to be denied a spot in those games in LA. The Polish government asked if she'd like to compete for her birth country and Stella readily agreed. She not only won gold in the 100 meter dash in 1932, she set a world record in doing so.

However it was in the Berlin games of 1936 where she was to make her biggest mark.

Stella was widely favored to repeat her winning ways in the 100 meter dash in Germany in 1936 but she ran into an obstacle named Helen Stephens, aka The Fulton Flash. For some reason Walsh felt compelled to spread the rumor that Stephens was actually a man. You see, back in those days before sophisticated gender testing the rule was that if a person had male sex organs then they were classified as a man, even if they also had a vagina as well, and they were not allowed to compete in the women's Olympic events. So almost from the start of the games Walsh was telling anyone who would listen that Stephens was really a man and that she had a penis. When they ran against each other in the 100 meter dash Stephens easily outran Walsh.

That's Stella on the left and Stephens on the right in the above photo.

As soon as the race was over Walsh cried foul. She said that no woman could have run that race as fast as Helen Stephens had just done so therefore she must have been a man. She and the Polish Olympic Committee demanded that Stephens be checked to see if she had a penis. In order to put the controversy to bed Stephens agreed and an impartial German doctor examined her. After seeing Ms. Stephens in her birthday suit, the German doctor quickly came to the conclusion that she was indeed a woman. Walsh was unhappy with the results of the physical given Stephens but she had to abide by the results.

Walsh competed as an amateur in track and field events until 1954. After 1954 she still did track and field events but only if she got paid. And since in those days one could not make a living off running, jumping, and throwing heavy metal objects and spears she took a job with the parks and recreation department in Cleveland, Ohio. She lived a quiet life through out the 1960's and '70's, even marrying for a brief period, and was elected into the US Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975.

The final chapter of Stella's life was written in December 1980. She was doing a bit of shopping in a Cleveland area shopping center when she was struck and killed by a stray bullet that was fired during the commission of a robbery.

But her story does not end there.

The autopsy on Stella revealed that she had a penis. That's right, Stella, by the definition used by the International Olympic Committee in the 1930's, and up until very recently by the way, was a man. It turned out that Stella suffered from a medical condition called mosaicism, which is a condition where a person has both male and female genitalia and they possess both XX and XY chromosomes. So in the light of that information it's apparent why Walsh so loudly accused Helen Stephens of being a man, she did it to throw off any suspicions that might be cast her way. I imagine that she took evey precaution she could to keep anyone and everyone from getting a glimpse at her 'little something extra.' One can also easily see now why her marriage did not last. Some people cried for all her records to be wiped out since she had 'cheated' but cooler heads prevailed and she was allowed to keep in death what she had worked so hard for in life.