The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time - Elliott Kalb [105]
Walsh returned to Poland following the games, and was one of the most popular people in the country for a number of years. In the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin she was beaten out for the gold medal by U.S. track star Helen Stephens. Walsh came in second, running the race in 11.7 seconds. Stella almost got her groove back, when Stephens had to submit to a genital inspection to prove that she was a woman. German doctors proved Stephens was a female, and the fastest one in the world.
That would prove considerably ironic, as it was Stella Walsh who was concealing male genitalia. But that wouldn’t be discovered for decades.
Get this: Also at the 1936 Olympic games, German Hermann Ratjen, a member of the Hitler Youth, taped up his genitals and entered the Olympic games as “Dora.” (We only know the truth about Ratjen because he confessed to this in 1957, claiming that Nazi officials put him up to it.) He was obviously not the perfect Aryan specimen, as he couldn’t even place for a medal among the women. Ratjen finished fourth in the women’s high jump. My point is this: Wanting to win gold medals led certain athletes to hide their private parts. Some people were suspected, and some were tested. Some were caught. And some were not.
Walsh moved back to the United States and continued to compete as an amateur. In 1947, she applied for and received American citizenship, and married boxer Neil Olson. Walsh and Olson were married for only a few months, but she used his last name for the rest of her life. Olson was obviously in on her deception, and what he got out of it remains his secret.
On June 13, 1963, Walsh competed in a track meet at the age of fifty-two. Sportswriter Oscar Fraley wrote this for UPI:
Stella Walsh must stand out as one of the two greatest women athletes of all time. The other, of course, would the late Mildred “Babe” Didrickson Zaharias. The Babe was something pretty special . . . but Stella is a marvel in her own right, too.
For Miss Walsh won the 1932 Olympic 100m run, and four years later, despite a pulled leg muscle, came in second. She won forty-one National AAU Championships in the 100-yard dash, 220-yard dash, broad jump, discuss throw, and basketball throw. Even Stella doesn’t know how many records she set or held. The closest guess would have to be 100, and it can be estimated that she won more than 1,100 events.
Five times Stella was the National AAU pentathlon champion, from 1950-1954. And now she’s competing at the age of 52.
Just in case you’re panting at the mere thought of it, Stella provides this formula for physical fitness: Regular morning calisthenics. A careful diet which avoids fried foods and taboo pastries, and plenty of sleep at regular hours.
Of course, it probably didn’t hurt to be a man competing against women. Walsh was inducted into the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975.
Walsh was a bystander during an armed robbery in Cleveland on December 4, 1980. She was killed instantly by a stray bullet. The New York Times reported in January of 1981 in an Associated Press story, “Stella Walsh, who won a gold medal and several silver medals in track competing as a woman, had male sex organs, according to an autopsy. The report also said that Miss Walsh had no female sex organs.”
Well, then the Associated Press found her husband, and his story was published in all the newspapers on February 12, 1981, with a headline reading: “Stella Walsh’s Husband ‘Disgusted’ By Publicity.”
Harry Olson said his late wife’s name had been slandered. “I don’t see what Cleveland is doing and what sadistic satisfaction the city is getting out of all this,” Olson said in a telephone interview from Northridge, California. “Where does the city government get the right to persecute someone? It