Tamara Press

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Medal record
Tamara Press
Women's Athletics
Competitor for Soviet Union
Olympic Games
Gold	1960 Rome	Shot put
Silver	1960 Rome	Discus throw
Gold	1964 Tokyo	Shot put
Gold	1964 Tokyo	Discus throw

Tamara Natanovna Press (Russian: Тамара Натановна Пресс) (May 10, 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 and field athlete, she was half of the "Press Sisters", a duo who won almost everything that there was to win.

At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome Tamara won the gold medal in the shotput and the silver medal in the discus. At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo she won the gold medal in both disciplines. In the shotput and in the discus throw she set six world records.

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

[edit] 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". After gender verification for all international sporting events was made mandatory in 1968 (this test was abolished in Sydney in 2000), both women vanished from the sporting stage. The Western press took this as a confession. Russian newspapers deny the allegations to this day.

[edit] Her place in history

The Press sisters came to symbolize the time in Soviet Union after the death of Stalin, culminating in the policies of Mikhail Gorbachev. Tamara and Irina were the most popular Soviet sports stars. Their biography was typical of the time: their father had died in the war and they grew up far from their homeland, since the German troops had occupied and destroyed it. Later they studied at the University of Leningrad.

[edit] After sport

After the Soviet federation withdrew their candidacy in 1966, both Press sisters began professional careers. Irina went to the border troops of the KGB and became an officer. Tamara became a civil engineer and wrote countless specialized books about her field, as well as about sport. Today both women hold honorary offices in Russian sports.