Stella the Fella
July 24, 2006 by Sasha Manuel
Filed under Sports Rumors
Do you remember Stella the Fella?
Poland runner Stella Walsh [Stanislawa Walasiewicz] was a dominant runner between the 1930s and the 1940s. However, she’s also considered one of the biggest hoaxes in Olympic history.
She won the gold in the 100m during the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. She’s the first woman to ever break the 12-second barrier. This feat plus years of amateur running earned her the distinction of being inducted to the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975.
But it was after Helen Stephens beat her in the 100m event during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin that created a controversy, which questioned Stephen’s gender. It was talks from the Walsh supporters that fueled this, to which the officials followed suit with an investigation wherein Stephens agreed to. After careful physical examination, the German doctors found that Stephens was indeed a female.
Ironically, it was later found out that it was Walsh who turned out to be a male after an autopsy was done when she got killed from a stray shot in 1980.
You need to make sure your facts are straight Stella Walsh was the first women to break the 11-second barrier, not the 12-second.
“Stella the fella” as you call her was raised female and identified as female on her birth certificate and other early records. She also married later in life (a man). I am waging a campaign to stop all posts of this kind on the internet. Stella Walsh and her friends and family have been harrassed and embarrassed enough over the past two decades. Why is it necessary to continue the smear campaign and the name calling?