Zdena / Zdeněk: the interwar Czech champion who changed genders

Zdena Koubková won two medals for Czechoslovakia at the Women’s World Games in 1934. Two years later, at the age of 22, she underwent gender reassignment surgery and became Zdeněk Koubek – who saw his former self’s sporting achievements erased from the books: national titles in the long and high jump and world records in running.