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Ewa Kłobukowska

Ewa Kłobukowska

Ewa Kłobukowska c. 1967
Personal information
Nationality	Polish
Born	1 October 1946 (1946-10) (age 77) Warsaw, Poland
Height	1.70 m (5 ft 7 in)
Weight	60 kg (132 lb)
Sport
Sport	Athletics
Event	Sprint
Club	Skra Warszawa
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)	100 m – 11.1 (1965) 200 m – 22.9 (1967)[1]
Medal record Representing  Poland Olympic Games 1964 Tokyo 4×100 m relay 1964 Tokyo 100 m European Championships 1966 Budapest 4×100 m relay 1966 Budapest 100 m 1966 Budapest 200 m

Ewa Janina Kłobukowska (born 1 October 1946) is a Polish former sprinter. She competed at the 1964 Olympics in the 4×100 m relay and 100 m sprint and won a gold and a bronze medal, respectively.^[2] She also won two gold and one silver medal at the 1966 European Athletics Championships. Kłobukowska set three world records, one in the 100 m (11.1 s, 9 July 1965 in Prague) and two in the 4×100 m relay (44.2 s, 13 September 1964, Łódź and 43.6 s, 21 October 1964, Tokyo). Kłobukowska was at one point considered to be the fastest woman in the world. The American Press made a statement, saying that nobody would beat Kłobukowska for the next 7–8 years following a race in Prague.^[3] Despite these successes and laurels, her records were annulled by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) after a sex identification test in 1967 wrongly labeled her as not female.^[4] The test procedures were later found to be inadequate.^[5][6]

Personal life[edit]

Kłobukowska was born into a family of intellectuals. In 1965, she graduated from a Technical School of Economics No. 6 and in 1972 from the SGH Warsaw School of Economics.^[5] She went on to work for a steel construction company called Energomontaż-Północ Gdynia.^[7] She then worked as an accountant in a Polish company in Czechoslovakia.^[8] In 1968, she became pregnant and gave birth to a son.^[9]

The sex test used for European Cup women's track and field competition in Kyiv in 1967 wrongly identified her as not female, and Kłobukowska was subsequently banned from competing in professional sports.^[10] This was surprising considering she passed the anatomical sex test a year prior to this competition.^[11] According to the IAAF, she had "one chromosome too many", likely referring to detection of a Y chromosome in some of her cells.^[11] However, if she had been tested one year later at the Mexico Olympics, she would have been eligible on the grounds that she was Barr Body (inactive X-chromosome) positive, having a Barr Body in all of her cells.^[12][13] Her humiliation led to a change in the sex verification policies by the International Olympic Committee, which from then on kept test results secret.^[14]

IAAF erased the three world records set by Kłobukowska, including the two team records in the 4×100 m relay.^[5][15] Even now, there are only a few articles on Kłobukowska because of the erasure of her accomplishments.^[3] Kłobukowska isn't seen in the public eye often because of the controversy.^[16] The reasoning behind this is that it has taken a significant toll on her mental health, almost resulting in suicide.^[3] As of 2017, she had still received no formal apology.^[16]

Honours[edit]

• Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, 1998^[17]
• Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, 2011^[18]
• Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, 2021^[19]

See also[edit]

• Sex verification in sports
• Caster Semenya
• Maria José Martínez-Patiño
• Dutee Chand
• Santhi Soundarajan
• Stanisława Walasiewicz
• Helen Stephens
• Irena Szewińska

References[edit]

External links[edit]

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