Questions and answers

Stella Walsh, born Stanisława Walasiewicz (1911–1980), was a Polish sprinter who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. She won Olympic gold in the 100 m for Poland at Los Angeles 1932 and silver at Berlin 1936, and in the 1930s she was called the fastest woman in the world.

No. Stella Walsh was born, lived and died as a woman. The autopsy after her death in 1980 showed she was intersex: she had chromosomal mosaicism (some cells XX, some XY) and undeveloped male genitalia alongside female ones. Coroner Samuel Gerber wrote that for 69 years she had been socially, culturally and legally a woman. Being intersex is an inborn biological variation, not deception.

Yes, according to the autopsy she was intersex. Older reports used the word “hermaphrodite”, which is now considered inaccurate and hurtful. She never spoke about her body in public, and her family protected her privacy even after her death.

No. The International Olympic Committee never stripped her of her 1932 gold or her 1936 silver. Her records and titles remain in the official books.

She was shot dead on December 4, 1980, in Cleveland. That evening she went to the Uncle Bill’s discount store on Broadway Avenue to buy red-and-white ribbons for medals for a visiting Polish women’s basketball team. In the parking lot men with a revolver approached her; she tried to grab the gun and was shot in the stomach. She died that night at St. Alexis Hospital, aged 69.

According to Rob Tannenbaum’s 2016 investigation for Longreads, the killers were arrested in 1983 after a tip from a prisoner. Donald Cassidy pleaded guilty to murder and got 15 years to life; Rickie Clark pleaded to voluntary manslaughter (6 to 25 years). Some encyclopedias still say no one was caught.

On April 3, 1911, in Wierzchownia near Górzno, Poland (now Brodnica County). She was baptised Stefania. The wooden house where she was born still stands. In 1912 she and her mother joined her father, a steelworker in Cleveland.

Teachers at her Cleveland parish school replaced her hard-to-pronounce name with Stella Walsh. She used it in American competition and raced for Poland as Stanisława Walasiewicz; “Walasiewiczówna” is the traditional Polish form for an unmarried woman.

In 1928 she could not enter the US Olympic trials because she was not a US citizen. From 1929 she competed for Poland, and before the 1932 Games she turned down US citizenship to race for Poland. She became an American citizen only in 1947.

Two: gold in the 100 m at Los Angeles 1932 (11.9 seconds, equalling the world record) and silver in the 100 m at Berlin 1936, behind Helen Stephens of the USA. She was also sixth in the discus in 1932. The war cancelled the next two Olympic Games.

Sources differ, because many of her marks came at rarely run distances and not all were ratified. Most accounts speak of more than a dozen recognised world records, including the 60, 100 and 200 m and the long jump.

At the first European Championships for women in Vienna in 1938 she won the 100 and 200 m. She won Poland’s Przegląd Sportowy athlete-of-the-year poll four times, took many Polish titles and about 40 US national titles.

Yes. After the 1936 Berlin Games there were rumours that the winner, Helen Stephens, was a man. A Warsaw paper attributed such a remark to Walsh, but days later she distanced herself from it: “I do not doubt that Helen Stephens is a woman.”

Briefly. In August 1956 she married former boxer Harry Neil Olson in Las Vegas. The marriage lasted a few months, though they never formally divorced, and she signed herself Stella Walsh Olson from then on.

She lived with her parents, Julian and Veronica, in a small house on Clement Avenue in Cleveland’s Polish neighbourhood, Slavic Village, and had two younger sisters, Sophia and Clara. After her father died in 1972 she cared for her bedridden mother. She also sent parcels to relatives in Poland.

At Calvary Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio. The funeral on December 9, 1980, drew about 400 mourners, including the Polish basketball players she had been buying ribbons for.

Her home village of Wierzchownia holds an annual memorial run, Rypin has a stadium named after her, and streets in several Polish towns bear her name. The Museum of Sport and Tourism in Warsaw has made an exhibition about her. Cleveland has a recreation centre named after her, and she is in the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame.

This memorial archive is kept by the Walasiewicz family and their descendants. The archive is coordinated by Sebastian Radzimiński, whose grandmother was born a Walasiewicz. If you have photographs, letters or memories of Stella, share them through our form or write to kontakt@walasiewiczowna.pl.