Until 1991, a female competing internationally needed a gender verification card that contained a photograph and official statement that she had passed the buccal smear chromosome test. In 1992, the 3C moved on to more complex genetic testing, but accuracy was still an issue. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, officials again used the buccal smear test. About one in 400 females tested male, but all were cleared by subsequent physical examinations. The buccal smear test is being used in these Games, but is no longer mandatory and athletes are, generally, randomlv selected.
 

  Mildred Ella Babe Didrikson smashed world records and won Olympic medals in various sports at the 1932 Games. Rumours circulated that she was a male impersonating a female - it didn’t help that when asked if there were anything she didn’t play, she answered: Yeah. Dolls. Marriage and motherhood finally put the gossip to rest.
 

  Stella Walsh has been called the greatest female athlete of the first half of the 20th century. In 1980, after being shot whilst an innocent bystander at an armed hold-up of a grocery store, she was given an autopsy. The report declared her to be a male, based on an external examination.
 

  Compulsory gynaecological examinations were introduced in 1966. Several female athletes immediately disappeared, including Tamara and Irena Press from the Soviet Union, who between them had won five gold medals, had set 26 new world records and were at the height of their careers.
 

  Polish sprinter Eva Klobukowska, who passed a qynaecological inspection in 1965, failed a sex chromosome test introduced the next year. Called the buccal smear test, it is based on a sample of cells from the inside of the cheek. Eva had one chromo-some too many to be declared a woman for the purposes of competition and she was banned. A few years later, she gave birth.