[1] In the following year he broke the Polish record in javelin throw three times, ultimately achieving a result of 38.23 m (his personal best of his entire career[8]).

With time, suspicions, remarks and rumors about Smętek's gender grew, especially given the athlete's custom of changing alone in the locker room.

[1] In 1935 Smętek was suspected to be intersex, and year later the press wrote about his supposed plans to undergo transition, which was denied by the athlete.

Jan Szeląg joked in the satirical Szpilki, that the Smętek-related articles were a ploy by Melchior Wańkowicz, supposedly promoting his new book Na tropach Smętka (Tracing Smętek).

[9] Smętek initially withheld this information from the media, but on 14 April 1937, he issued a press statement on the matter, announcing that he would undergo surgery the following week.

[9] In May 1939, he gave an interview to Reuters in which he mentioned a wish to detransition (which he didn't follow on) due to the hard experiences of the past two years.

[1][2] On 9 September 1939, when the World War II hostilities were already underway in Warsaw, in the church in Saska Kępa Smętek married Janina Rusinowska, with whom he had three children.

[9] During the war, Smętek was active in the Polish resistance, for which he was arrested and held imprisoned for a short time in Pawiak (due to lack of evidence he was released by the Gestapo).

[9] After World War II, Smętek was completely forgotten by the sports community; some sources even contained false information about his alleged death during the Invasion of Poland[2].