fiamme red
08-13-2012, 12:41 PM
This article is interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/sports/olympics/suspicion-lurks-behind-each-new-track-record-at-the-olympics.html
Gohr won gold medals in the 4x100 relay at the 1976 Montreal Games and the 1980 Moscow Games. She finished second at 100 meters in Moscow. In 1977, Gohr was credited with being the first woman to run 100 meters under 11 seconds with electronic timing. On Saturday, as she has previously, she denied ever having knowingly used illicit substances to fuel her speed.
“The East German system was very strong,” Gohr said. “We had many good trainers.”
The problem with Gohr’s denial is that it has been proved to be false, said Dr. Werner Franke, a molecular biologist from Heidelberg, Germany.
Upon German reunification in 1990, Franke uncovered a trove of secret doping documents in the East German central army hospital in the resort town of Bad Saarow. He assisted his wife, Brigitte Berendonk, whose landmark 1991 book, translated as “Doping: From Research to Cheating,” revealed the details of the East German system.
On Saturday, Franke said by phone that Gohr had received performance-enhancing drugs from the time she was a teenager, according to the documents he uncovered. Her highest annual dosage of the steroid Oral-Turinabol was 1,405 milligrams in 1984, a year before the relay record was set, Franke said.
“That was high, twice the concentration the male sprinters got,” Franke said. “Crazy.”
Much more information here:
http://www.clinchem.org/content/43/7/1262.full
The use of the drug rapidly spread to other kinds of sports, and according to Höppner, many, if not all, medal-winning GDR athletes in strength- and speed-dependent events at the Olympic Games of 1972 in Munich had been treated with Oral-Turinabol. The effects of the treatment with androgenic hormones were so spectacular, particularly in female athletes in strength-dependent events, that few competitors not using the drugs had a chance of winning.
In the GDR of the 1970s, the use of this and other androgenic hormones became customary among athletes, including minors. For a talented female athlete, it was a no-win situation: They could either take it (the drug) or leave it (give up competitive sports). The dosages were also drastically increased, at least until the late 1970s, when some of the damaging side effects became so overt that in the swimming events of the Olympic Games in Montreal 1976, where the GDR won 11 out of 13 events, journalists were inquiring about the strangely deep-sounding voices of the broad-shouldered GDR female swimmers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/sports/olympics/suspicion-lurks-behind-each-new-track-record-at-the-olympics.html
Gohr won gold medals in the 4x100 relay at the 1976 Montreal Games and the 1980 Moscow Games. She finished second at 100 meters in Moscow. In 1977, Gohr was credited with being the first woman to run 100 meters under 11 seconds with electronic timing. On Saturday, as she has previously, she denied ever having knowingly used illicit substances to fuel her speed.
“The East German system was very strong,” Gohr said. “We had many good trainers.”
The problem with Gohr’s denial is that it has been proved to be false, said Dr. Werner Franke, a molecular biologist from Heidelberg, Germany.
Upon German reunification in 1990, Franke uncovered a trove of secret doping documents in the East German central army hospital in the resort town of Bad Saarow. He assisted his wife, Brigitte Berendonk, whose landmark 1991 book, translated as “Doping: From Research to Cheating,” revealed the details of the East German system.
On Saturday, Franke said by phone that Gohr had received performance-enhancing drugs from the time she was a teenager, according to the documents he uncovered. Her highest annual dosage of the steroid Oral-Turinabol was 1,405 milligrams in 1984, a year before the relay record was set, Franke said.
“That was high, twice the concentration the male sprinters got,” Franke said. “Crazy.”
Much more information here:
http://www.clinchem.org/content/43/7/1262.full
The use of the drug rapidly spread to other kinds of sports, and according to Höppner, many, if not all, medal-winning GDR athletes in strength- and speed-dependent events at the Olympic Games of 1972 in Munich had been treated with Oral-Turinabol. The effects of the treatment with androgenic hormones were so spectacular, particularly in female athletes in strength-dependent events, that few competitors not using the drugs had a chance of winning.
In the GDR of the 1970s, the use of this and other androgenic hormones became customary among athletes, including minors. For a talented female athlete, it was a no-win situation: They could either take it (the drug) or leave it (give up competitive sports). The dosages were also drastically increased, at least until the late 1970s, when some of the damaging side effects became so overt that in the swimming events of the Olympic Games in Montreal 1976, where the GDR won 11 out of 13 events, journalists were inquiring about the strangely deep-sounding voices of the broad-shouldered GDR female swimmers.