Nancy Navalta

Nancy Navalta is a Filipino retired track and field athlete and coach. She is known for being a prospect of the national team for her feats in the Palarong Pambansa in the 1990s. Her career ended in 1996, after she was found out to be intersex.

Early life and education Hailing from the province of Luna, La Union, Navalta was born intersex, was assigned female at birth and was raised as a girl. Navalta is the eldest among six children. She was originally into volleyball, playing the sport in fourth grade but shifted to athletics after beating one of the best runners in her town.

She helped her family in their livelihood by carrying rocks which she later attributes as the cause for her physique in the absence of prior formal training as a competitive athlete.

Navalta studied at the Coseca Colleges in San Fernando, La Union and pursued a degree in criminology

Career Navalta started her sporting career at age 18. She started competing at the Palarong Pambansa, the national games for student-athletes in the Philippines, in 1991. In that edition held in Iloilo, Navalta failed to win an event.

The Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association (PATAFA) bared Navalta from competing in the women's division from any local and international tournaments in the lead up to the 1996 Palarong Pambansa in Soccsksargen. Majority of the 15 regions at the time threaten a boycott if Navalta would be allowed to do so. Ilocos coach failed to convince her to compete in the men's division. She also attempted to join in the PNG of that year.

She was named part of the Philippines' delegation for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta after attaining a qualifying time. However her career ended after she learned about her intersex condition in 1996. She was quoted to have said that she had "strong male hormones".

In popular culture Navalta's biography has been a subject of an episode of ABS-CBN's Maalaala Mo Kaya released in 2004. In 2011, her life was featured in the documentary program Tunay na Buhay in GMA Network.