Tamara Press, Olympic athletics champion whose career was overshadowed by doubts about her gender – obituary
The two Press sisters won six Olympic medals between them but retired following the introduction of gender testing
Tamara Press, right, and her sister Irina
Credit: SPUTNIK/Alamy
Tamara Press, the former Soviet athlete, who has died aged 83, won gold medals at the 1960 and 1964 Olympics; but her career, like that of her younger sister Irina, was dogged by speculation about her gender, an enigma left unresolved when both sisters abruptly withdrew from competition in 1966.
In Rome in 1960, the Press girls became the first sisters to win Olympic gold medals, the incredibly muscular Irina winning the 80-metre hurdles a full three strides ahead of her nearest competitor and the even more impressive-looking Tamara winning the shot put by nearly five feet while taking a silver in the discus.