Ewa Kłobukowska

Ewa Kłobukowska was considered among the top European sprinters in the mid-1960s, but her career came to an abrupt end in 1967 after a gender verification test. 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. She competed at the 1966 European Championships, winning 100 and 4x100 relay golds, and a silver in the 200. She never won an individual Polish title, her only titles coming in 4x100 m relay in 1964 and 1966.

In 1967, before the European Cup, held in Kyiv, Kłobukowska failed a gender verification test and was subsequently banned from competing in professional sports. The IAAF annulled her three World records, but allowed her to keep her Olympic and European Championships medals. Medical publications revealed that Kłobukowska had a genetic mosaicism, an abnormality where one’s cells have a different genetic makeup, which has varying effects on development.

The test procedures were later found not to be accurate and her case led to a change in the gender verification policies by the IOC. After her forced retirement from sports, Kłobukowska graduated from the Warsaw School of Economics in 1972 with a master of economics degree and later worked for many years with Energomontaż-Północ Gdynia, the leading Polish supplier of multidisciplinary projects for offshore and onshore oil and the gas industry.

Personal Best: 100 – 11.1 (1965).