Tamara Press

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Medal record
Tamara Press
Women's Athletics
Competitor for  Soviet Union
Olympic Games
Gold	1960 Rome	Shot put
Gold	1964 Tokyo	Shot put
Gold	1964 Tokyo	Discus throw
Silver	1960 Rome	Discus throw
European Championships
Gold	1958 Stockholm	Discus throw
Gold	1962 Belgrade	Shot put
Gold	1962 Belgrade	Discus throw
Bronze	1958 Stockholm	Shot put
Universiade
Gold	1961 Sofia	Discus throw
Gold	1963 Porto Alegre	Discus throw

Tamara Natanovna Press (Russian: Тамара Натановна Пресс; Ukrainian: Тамара Натанівна Пресс, Tamara Natanivna Press) (born 10 May 1937 in Kharkiv, Ukraine) is a former Soviet shot putter and discus thrower in the 1960s. She competed for VSS Trud. Together with her younger sister Irina Press, who was also a track athlete, she was half of the "Press Sisters", a duo who won almost everything that there was to win in track and field, except for distance running.

At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, Tamara won the gold medal in the shot put and the silver medal in the discus. At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, she won the gold medal in both events. In the shot put and in the discus throw she set six world records.

Tamara was also successful in the European championships. In 1958 in Stockholm she was third in the shot put, and in 1962 in Belgrade she was the European champion in the shot put as well as the discus.

Questions regarding gender

It was said of both sisters that their gender could not be determined. Some even thought that they might be hermaphrodites - still another opinion was that they were being injected with male hormones in order to make them stronger. Detractors called them the "Press Brothers".^[1] After gender verification for all international sporting female events was made mandatory in 1966 (curtailed in Sydney in 2000), both vanished from the sporting scene. The Western press took that as a confession by the Soviet Union. Russian newspapers still deny the allegations.

Legacy

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Tamara and Irina were popular female Soviet sports stars. Their biographies were typical of the time: their father had died in the Great Patriotic War, and they grew up far from their home areas - since the German troops had occupied and destroyed them. Later on, they studied at the University of Leningrad.

Later life

After the Soviet sports federations withdrew their candidacies in 1966, both of the Press sisters began other careers. Tamara became a civil engineer, and wrote numerous books about her field, as well as about sports. Today, she holds an honorary office in Russian sports, as did Irina before her death in 2004.

References

Records
Preceded by Nina Dumbadze	Women's Discus World Record Holder 12 September 1960 – 5 November 1967	Succeeded by Liesel Westermann

This article incorporates information from the German Wikipedia.