Irina Press - Questions Regarding Gender

Questions Regarding Gender

Their careers ended abruptly at the time that sex verification was introduced. Critics have suggested that the Press sisters were actually male, or perhaps hermaphrodites. Another allegation was that they were being injected with male hormones in order to make them stronger. Detractors called them the "Press Brothers". Both sisters had left the sporting scene by the time that gender verification for all international sporting female events was made mandatory in 1966 (curtailed in Sydney in 2000) . Some Western newspapers took that as a confession by the Soviet Union, but Russian newspapers still deny the allegations.

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