Saturday 8 August 2009

what about those east germans?


Here is the train of thought:

1. Swimming records are being set in these rubber suits, and the suits are going to be banned, and the records will stay on the books for a long time.
2. Records which stay on the books for a long time are fun. Bob Beamon's long jump, obviously. The 200m, where there have only been three records in 30 years: Pietro Mennea in 1979, then Michael Johnson in 1996 and then Usain Bolt last year.
3. And then there are the well dodgy ones still cluttering up women's athletics. Flo Jo, who suddenly improved beyond all recognition, was amazing for 1988, won her medals and set the records and retired, just before the introduction of mandatory out-of-competition testing, and who died of various internal explosions aged 38. And the East Germans, led by Marita Koch. And the incredibly masculine Czech, Jarmila Kratochvilova, who I always supported against Koch.

Wikipedia coyly calls JK 'late-developing'. In 1983, in her first season running 800m, at the age of 32, she took on a seemingly impossible (read 'impossible') schedule in the World Champs, and lo and behold she suddenly held 400m and 800m records. Koch broke the 400m in 1985, but the 800m still stands, like Flo Jo's.

Documents later uncovered describe the timings and dosages of steroids fed to Koch, though she never publicly admitted taking them. However, Wikipedia does say:
However, a letter to the head of the state-owned pharmaceutical company was discovered by researcher Werner Frank, in which Marita Koch complained that Bärbel Wöckel received larger doses of steroids, because she had a relative working in the company
East Germany was a hell of a place.

1 comment:

Miss Jones said...

Re: point 1. All this swimsuit hoo-ha reminds me of the Nemeth javelin palaver in the early 90s (I think). With this in mind, and re: points 2 and 3, if you were to write more posts about world athletics in the 80s, I would be very excited.