Saturday , November 16 2024

20 Rare Historical Facts About Olympic Games That You Never Knew

17. The 1964 Olympic champion, Ewa Kłobukowska, who set three world records for sprinting, was banned from competing in professional sports and her records annulled because she failed a gender verification test. A year later, she gave birth to her first child.

Ewa Kłobukowska had a rare genetic anomaly called Barr Body which causes an inactive X chromosome. Gender verifications were done to ensure that no male imposter gets to win because of unfair advantage in women’s competitions. The test was also widely criticized for being only directed at female athletes and the humiliation it caused them. The incident with Kłobukowska’s tests caused the International Olympic Committee to change the gender verification policies. From then on, the test results were kept secret.

18. In the 1936 Summer Olympics, Liechtenstein and Haiti competed against each other only to find out that they developed identical national flags independently of each other.

The flag of Liechtenstein has two colors, blue and red, in horizontal bands, which is the same for Haiti. The coat of arms that Haiti uses on its flag is just for national and military purposes, that meant their flags were as good as the same at the competition. After the event, Liechtenstein added a crown to its flag.




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