Sheldon Anderson is professor of history at Miami University (Ohio), specializing in Cold War history, European diplomatic history, and sports history. He is the author of A Dollar to Poland Is a Dollar to Russia (1993), A Cold War in the Soviet Bloc (2000), Condemned to Repeat It (2008), and The Politics and Culture of Modern Sports (2015).

• AcknowledgmentsPrologueChapter 1: From Russian Poland to Cleveland’s Slavic VillageChapter 2: Cleveland’s “Twentieth-Century Flyer”Chapter 3: Stanislawa Walasiewicz Runs for PolandChapter 4: Winning Olympic Gold and a Challenge from MissouriChapter 5: Stella Walsh and Helen Stephens at the Nazi OlympicsChapter 6: The Greatest Woman AthleteChapter 7: The Move to Los Angeles and an Arranged MarriageChapter 8: Back to Cleveland and the MurderChapter 9: Saving Stella WalshEpilogueNotesBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

In this lively biography, Anderson, a history professor at Miami University, narrates the life of Stella Walsh, a trailblazer in women’s track and field. Walsh was born in Poland in 1911 as Stanislawa Walasiewicz, and when she was an infant her family emigrated to the U.S. and settled in the Slavic community of Cleveland, Ohio. Walsh was a natural athlete who excelled in sprinting in high school and was invited by a local sports club to compete in regional track meets. Walsh became one of the fastest sprinters in the world and competed in the 1928 Olympics for the Polish national team because she’d never received her U.S. citizenship. In the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, she won gold in the 100 meter race for Poland. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Walsh lost to American runner Helen Stephens and was forced to submit to genital inspection to confirm she was a woman. Walsh remained hugely popular and became a regular on the North American circuit during the war, setting more world records. Upon her death in 1980, an autopsy was performed, revealing that she was intersex. This led to a dispute over her achievements. Anderson is sympathetic toward Walsh, persuasively writing that ‘whatever anguish she might have felt, she always thought of herself as a woman.’ With humanity, detail, and grace, eschewing judgment and awkward posturing, Anderson revives the life of a neglected world-class athlete.

Sheldon Anderson is professor of history at Miami University (Ohio), specializing in Cold War history, European diplomatic history, and sports history. He is the author of A Dollar to Poland Is a Dollar to Russia (1993), A Cold War in the Soviet Bloc (2000), Condemned to Repeat It (2008), and The Politics and Culture of Modern Sports (2015).

• AcknowledgmentsPrologueChapter 1: From Russian Poland to Cleveland’s Slavic VillageChapter 2: Cleveland’s “Twentieth-Century Flyer”Chapter 3: Stanislawa Walasiewicz Runs for PolandChapter 4: Winning Olympic Gold and a Challenge from MissouriChapter 5: Stella Walsh and Helen Stephens at the Nazi OlympicsChapter 6: The Greatest Woman AthleteChapter 7: The Move to Los Angeles and an Arranged MarriageChapter 8: Back to Cleveland and the MurderChapter 9: Saving Stella WalshEpilogueNotesBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

In this lively biography, Anderson, a history professor at Miami University, narrates the life of Stella Walsh, a trailblazer in women’s track and field. Walsh was born in Poland in 1911 as Stanislawa Walasiewicz, and when she was an infant her family emigrated to the U.S. and settled in the Slavic community of Cleveland, Ohio. Walsh was a natural athlete who excelled in sprinting in high school and was invited by a local sports club to compete in regional track meets. Walsh became one of the fastest sprinters in the world and competed in the 1928 Olympics for the Polish national team because she’d never received her U.S. citizenship. In the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, she won gold in the 100 meter race for Poland. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Walsh lost to American runner Helen Stephens and was forced to submit to genital inspection to confirm she was a woman. Walsh remained hugely popular and became a regular on the North American circuit during the war, setting more world records. Upon her death in 1980, an autopsy was performed, revealing that she was intersex. This led to a dispute over her achievements. Anderson is sympathetic toward Walsh, persuasively writing that ‘whatever anguish she might have felt, she always thought of herself as a woman.’ With humanity, detail, and grace, eschewing judgment and awkward posturing, Anderson revives the life of a neglected world-class athlete.

Sheldon Anderson is professor of history at Miami University (Ohio), specializing in Cold War history, European diplomatic history, and sports history. He is the author of A Dollar to Poland Is a Dollar to Russia (1993), A Cold War in the Soviet Bloc (2000), Condemned to Repeat It (2008), and The Politics and Culture of Modern Sports (2015).

• AcknowledgmentsPrologueChapter 1: From Russian Poland to Cleveland’s Slavic VillageChapter 2: Cleveland’s “Twentieth-Century Flyer”Chapter 3: Stanislawa Walasiewicz Runs for PolandChapter 4: Winning Olympic Gold and a Challenge from MissouriChapter 5: Stella Walsh and Helen Stephens at the Nazi OlympicsChapter 6: The Greatest Woman AthleteChapter 7: The Move to Los Angeles and an Arranged MarriageChapter 8: Back to Cleveland and the MurderChapter 9: Saving Stella WalshEpilogueNotesBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

In this lively biography, Anderson, a history professor at Miami University, narrates the life of Stella Walsh, a trailblazer in women’s track and field. Walsh was born in Poland in 1911 as Stanislawa Walasiewicz, and when she was an infant her family emigrated to the U.S. and settled in the Slavic community of Cleveland, Ohio. Walsh was a natural athlete who excelled in sprinting in high school and was invited by a local sports club to compete in regional track meets. Walsh became one of the fastest sprinters in the world and competed in the 1928 Olympics for the Polish national team because she’d never received her U.S. citizenship. In the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, she won gold in the 100 meter race for Poland. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Walsh lost to American runner Helen Stephens and was forced to submit to genital inspection to confirm she was a woman. Walsh remained hugely popular and became a regular on the North American circuit during the war, setting more world records. Upon her death in 1980, an autopsy was performed, revealing that she was intersex. This led to a dispute over her achievements. Anderson is sympathetic toward Walsh, persuasively writing that ‘whatever anguish she might have felt, she always thought of herself as a woman.’ With humanity, detail, and grace, eschewing judgment and awkward posturing, Anderson revives the life of a neglected world-class athlete.