The coaches asked Erica Schinegger to come to Innsbruck. The skier did not attach much importance to this. The athlete thought that she was waiting for a meeting with new sponsors before the Olympics or a banal adjustment of the training plan. However, that day divided the girl's life into «before» and «after».
Erica was met by the medical headquarters. Doctors received the results of the latest tests, which clearly showed that the athlete is a man. Dreams of playing at the Games were shattered. The 19-year-old skier's career has come to a standstill.
Didn't know she was a man
Schinegger from children's competitions stood out for physical strength. It was easy for her to win over her peers. It quickly became clear that a new world star was rising. No one was surprised when 18-year-old Erika won the 1966 World Championships. After the triumph, the young Austrian began preparing for the Olympics.Erica understood that she did not look like her rivals, but did not attach much importance to this. She always liked girls, but she just considered herself a lesbian. Physical superiority? Everything was explained by genetics, nothing unusual. And the strangeness of the shape of the genitals was attributed to an inguinal hernia.
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"I thought that by nature the best other rivals. As a child, I was offended when I was called too masculine, but I considered it the usual envy of skiers. Who knew that everything was not a joke, but the truth,» Eric recalled.
The reasons for the total advantage of Schinegger over rivals surfaced. In the 60s, they began to actively introduce checks for sexual affiliation among athletes, which was facilitated by new types of analysis. The tests indicated Erica's real gender.
The girl was found to have a male set of chromosomes. An in-depth examination determined: Schinegger turned out to be a full-fledged guy with the only feature — the genitals grew inside. This also explained the fact that Erica never had a period, and her breasts never enlarged.
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“I was immediately suspended from participation in the qualification of the Olympic Games and kicked out of the national team. They advised me not to tell anyone and just disappear so that people would forget about me,” Schinegger wrote in her autobiography.
Erica faced a difficult choice. Some time later, she was offered hormone therapy, some cosmetic surgery, and continued to compete for women after a couple of years. The skier acted differently.The athlete decided to become Eric. Schinegger underwent surgery to replace the genitals and changed her name. Recovery took several months, after which the skier started training again. However, there was no understanding on the part of new partners and coaches.
The athlete began to spread rot. Men did not want to train with a «woman», and former rivals condemned him for taking away awards from them. Mass hatred reached the point that Eric's summer cottage, allocated by the government after winning the World Cup, was confiscated.
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"I had to return the medals. Things that were donated, such as a building plot in my village, were taken away. I was treated as if I had deliberately deceived everyone. But I just didn't know about the feature,» said Schinegger.
Eric's career in men's cross-country skiing did not work out. He managed to catch a couple of medals in the Austrian tournaments, but things didn’t go any further. Competing has become much harder. And the constant bullying didn't stop. The persecution came from all sides.
Speaks against transgender people
Schinegger was deprived of the future, and then the past was taken away. The International Ski Federation took away the victory in the 1966 World Championships and awarded the first place to the Frenchwoman Marielle Guachel. The gold medal was left, just another award of the highest standard was sent to the opponent. Many years later, the athlete himself decided to part with the prize.Eric and Mariel met on a TV show. The Austrian brought the gold award and honestly wanted to give it to the Frenchwoman. The skier was flattered by such an act, but did not accept the gift. Therefore, the medal still remains in the Schinegger collection.
When Eric fully transitioned and became a man, he began to lead a turbulent personal life. He changed girls one by one. It soon got boring. The former skier started a family and even became a father.
The scandalous deprivation of the medal and the sex change were erased from memory, they simply forgot about Schinegger. Eric decided to fix this during the Tokyo Olympics. The former skier surprised the world and spoke out against the participation of transgender woman Laurel Hubbard.
Austrian realized that his victory in the world championship was unfair. Now he fights for women to compete with women and men for men. So that no one else has to experience the same bullying that the athlete experienced.