Polish sprinter ewa klobukowska gender

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But just three years later, her career was ended when she became the first athlete banned for failing a sex verification test – one now known to have been inaccurate.

The controversy at the recent Paris Olympics over the eligibility of two boxers, Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, can feel like a very modern debate.

But a remarkably similar situation arose six decades ago around Polish sprinter Ewa Kłobukowska, a figure largely forgotten today but one whose case changed the way gender testing is conducted.

At the Tokyo Olympics of 1964, Kłobukowska – who had turned 18 while travelling to the games – won gold as part of the Polish women’s 4x100m relay team, who set a world record time.

Over the years, scientific perspectives on sex and gender have evolved radically, partly owing to the dialogues initiated by cases such as hers.

By the late 20th and early 21st centuries, policies began to catch up with reality, offering a more inclusive and scientifically informed understanding of gender diversity. But in fact she had been excluded due to failing a gender test – one that is now known to have been unreliable but which ended her career and resulted in private and public humiliation.

“One chromosome too many”

Reports that emerged at the time suggested Kłobukowska had failed a “close-up visual inspection of the genitalia [which] was used to establish eligibility” during the athletics event in Kyiv.

Danuta Straszyńska, a Polish hurdler from the time, later recalled experiencing those “terrible tests” in which athletes were “stripped naked” and “paraded in front of a commission” for assessment.

As a result of Kłobukowska’s “visual inspection”, further investigation was carried out and she then became the first-ever athlete to be disqualified through the Barr body test, a recently introduced prototype chromosome test.

It was publicly announced that the athlete had “failed to pass the necessary sex test” due to having “one chromosome too many for her to be declared a woman for the purposes of athletic competition”.

Kłobukowska’s coach, Jan Mulak, later wrote in his autobiography that “it was decided that it would be a departure from the principle of fair play if she were allowed to compete with women”.

They were annulled by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) after she failed a gender identification test in 1967, though the test procedures were later found to be inadequate. As gender verification tests became a routine part of athletics in the mid-1960s, Ewa Kłobukowska found herself at the center of this controversial practice.

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. In 1998, she was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Poland’s second-highest civilian award. Amidst her success, she became embroiled in a scientific and sociocultural maelstrom surrounding gender and sex verification tests, ultimately becoming a symbol of resilience and progress.

Kłobukowska’s impact on track and field was immediate and profound.

Sprinting under the Polish flag, she showcased a combination of technical prowess and raw speed that was unbeatable for many of her contemporaries.

The gold medal in the 1964 Summer Olympics was a defining moment. We cannot do what we do without your support.

However, rather than trying to fight the accusations against her, Kłobukowska decided to withdraw from the sport.

Her experience illustrates that humanity thrives on diversity and challenges to narrow assumptions. These gender tests, later criticized for their scientific inaccuracies and ethical dubiousness, concluded that she had a rare genetic condition that left her ineligible to compete as a woman under international athletic standards of the time. After winning 100 m and 4x100 m relay golds at the 1964 European Junior Championships, she ran her first world record just a month before the 1964 Olympics, when she was part of the Skra Warszawa 4x100 m relay team that clocked 44.2 at the Polish championships.

At the Olympics, Kłobukowska won bronze in the 100 and then helped the Polish team to win gold in the 4x100 relay with a world record of 43.6.

In 1965, Kłobukowska won 100, 200 and 4x100 golds at the European Cup and that same year set her third world record by clocking 11.1 in 100 m in July in Praha. In Kłobukowska’s case, they said that she most likely had a rare condition called “XX/XXY mosaicism”.

The year after Ferguson-Smith and Ferris’s article, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ended compulsory sex screening for all athletes.

Her victory in the relay and a bronze in the 100 meters made her one of the stars of the event, a beacon of hope and national pride for Poland, a country often mired in geopolitical turmoil.

Crisis and Controversy: Gender Verification Tests

Perhaps one of the most intriguing yet challenging episodes in Kłobukowska’s career came shortly after her Olympic success.

Career

Kłobukowska set three world records, one in the 100 m (111 s, 9 July 1965 in Prague) and two in the 4 × 100 m relay (442 s, 13 September 1964, Lodz and 436 s, 21 October 1964, Tokyo). Nevertheless, her influence on athletics, science, and gender discourse persisted. She didn’t disappear from public life; rather, she harnessed her experience to effect change from within quieter corridors of influence.

It can be argued that Ewa Kłobukowska played an unwitting yet pivotal role in pushing these conversations forward, ensuring that future athletes would not face the same injustices.

Inspiring Change Beyond the Track

Today, the world is in the throes of discussions about identity, making Kłobukowska’s story remarkably relevant.