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lanky
Well-known member
The part of the article that made me mad was regarding the 6 year old and "candy" . very good read...what monsters
The National Olympic Committee argues that competitors took the drugs willingly and that their parents were fully aware of what was going on. But the athletes insist the coaches who gave them the pills told them they were harmless vitamins.
Karen Koenig, a 1980s swimming champion, is bringing the first case against the NOC. She says doping destroyed her health and ruined her life.
And she claims that it wasn't until a fateful meeting with her former trainer in 1990 that she realised she had been drugged. At just 15, she had realised her ambition as one of East Germany's record-breaking freestyle relay team. She won two European titles the following year and was awarded the ultimate accolade by her country - the Order Of Merit.
Now 36, she has a manly voice that makes her sound like an elderly chain smoker. She suffers from depression and muscle spasms and doctors have warned her to expect liver and abdominal problems.
"Doping began from the age of 11," she told the court this week. "As part of my nutrition regime I had to take daily drinks from a series of specially-marked beakers.
"I also took five white pills. It is still unclear what those were. At 14, I was given anabolic steroids, light-blue pills, which the trainer explained helped the body recover after training. The effects of the steroid was to quadruple testosterone levels in the body, which helped spur dramatic muscle growth. I had no idea I was being drugged." She noticed strange effects on her body, including severe acne, but she put any doubts from her mind... until she saw her trainer years later.
The coach suggested she should start training again, saying he still "had a few of the old blue pills" in the cupboard. She says: "I was furious I had been deceived for so long. Now I want to unveil the whole system as every single person involved should be made responsible for what they did. Not just the doctors and the coaches, but also all those who were in charge of sport."
Communist East Germany was a country that excelled only in shortages. Poor food, decrepit housing and 11-year waiting lists for Trabant cars. But the politburo wanted to show a different face to the world through its athletes. And it worked - from 1972 to 1988 they won 384 Olympic medals. But hundreds of lives were harmed, and the victims are only now speaking out.
Birgit Boese was 10 when her grooming to be an champion shot-putter started. She trained 10 hours a day, six days a week. From age 11, every few days she was forced to take some blue pills. She says: "My voice got deeper. When I answered the phone at home, relatives thought I was my brother.
"I grew unusual amounts of body hair and put on muscle mass and height." Now 43, the 6ft 3ins woman has to use a cane to get around her Berlin apartment. She takes morphine to cope with chronic back pain, as well as insulin injections for her diabetes.
Her liver and kidneys do not function properly and she has asthma. Like many athletes, she had been given Oral-Turinabol, a steroid produced by pharmaceutical company Jenapharm. It was approved for some illnesses, but not meant as a performance enhancer. Jenapharm won't discuss out-of-court settlements with the athletes. It has said it is not culpable, since the drug was legal in the German Democratic Republic but misused by trainers.
But lawyers say files from the East German secret police, the Stasi, show company officials discussed the doping programme with the government and trainers on several occasions.
Rica Reinisch knows all about the effects of Oral-Turinabol. She took three golds at the 1980 Moscow Olympics in the 100m and 200m backstroke and relay, holds five world records, and won gold in 1981 in the European Championships. SHE was just 14 when her coach gave her a blue pill after training one day.
She says: "Two years later the problems began. I collapsed at training, suffering from inflamed ovaries. I went to see the doctor. He seemed distressed. He told me simply that I should give up top-level sport."
It was only after the collapse of the Berlin Wall that Reinisch discovered what she had been supplied with. Now 40, she has had two stillborn children and has a heart condition that prevents strenuous exercise. She works as a TV presenter and lives in Hamburg.
Catherine Menschner tells an equally sad story. She won her first swimming competition when she was six and was sent to a sport academy where her mentors handed her boxes of "sweets" filled with brightly-coloured pills. By 11, she could do 100 push-ups and weightlift 65lb after "earning" a place in a guinea-pig group in which the effects of early doping were monitored.
Her career was ended by spinal injury when she was 14 and now she suffers from back pain, breathlessness and infections of her over-sized lungs. Her doctors have told her she cannot lift anything heavier than 250 grams - "That's a block of butter," she says with despair. She also blames the drugs for seven miscarriages. She works in Berlin, aged 41, as a journalist.
Doping also took a terrible toll on weightlifter Roland Schmidt. He took so many pills that in 1980 his body ceased producing male hormones. He grew breasts to a size 36DD that had to be amputated. And in a terrible twist of irony, those breasts developed cancer before they were removed.
Now a lifeguard in a town in Saxony, he says: "You can imagine how I felt, a strapping fellow suddenly carrying around these female breasts. "I suffer liver problems and nightmares. Justice should be done for me and the many
The National Olympic Committee argues that competitors took the drugs willingly and that their parents were fully aware of what was going on. But the athletes insist the coaches who gave them the pills told them they were harmless vitamins.
Karen Koenig, a 1980s swimming champion, is bringing the first case against the NOC. She says doping destroyed her health and ruined her life.
And she claims that it wasn't until a fateful meeting with her former trainer in 1990 that she realised she had been drugged. At just 15, she had realised her ambition as one of East Germany's record-breaking freestyle relay team. She won two European titles the following year and was awarded the ultimate accolade by her country - the Order Of Merit.
Now 36, she has a manly voice that makes her sound like an elderly chain smoker. She suffers from depression and muscle spasms and doctors have warned her to expect liver and abdominal problems.
"Doping began from the age of 11," she told the court this week. "As part of my nutrition regime I had to take daily drinks from a series of specially-marked beakers.
"I also took five white pills. It is still unclear what those were. At 14, I was given anabolic steroids, light-blue pills, which the trainer explained helped the body recover after training. The effects of the steroid was to quadruple testosterone levels in the body, which helped spur dramatic muscle growth. I had no idea I was being drugged." She noticed strange effects on her body, including severe acne, but she put any doubts from her mind... until she saw her trainer years later.
The coach suggested she should start training again, saying he still "had a few of the old blue pills" in the cupboard. She says: "I was furious I had been deceived for so long. Now I want to unveil the whole system as every single person involved should be made responsible for what they did. Not just the doctors and the coaches, but also all those who were in charge of sport."
Communist East Germany was a country that excelled only in shortages. Poor food, decrepit housing and 11-year waiting lists for Trabant cars. But the politburo wanted to show a different face to the world through its athletes. And it worked - from 1972 to 1988 they won 384 Olympic medals. But hundreds of lives were harmed, and the victims are only now speaking out.
Birgit Boese was 10 when her grooming to be an champion shot-putter started. She trained 10 hours a day, six days a week. From age 11, every few days she was forced to take some blue pills. She says: "My voice got deeper. When I answered the phone at home, relatives thought I was my brother.
"I grew unusual amounts of body hair and put on muscle mass and height." Now 43, the 6ft 3ins woman has to use a cane to get around her Berlin apartment. She takes morphine to cope with chronic back pain, as well as insulin injections for her diabetes.
Her liver and kidneys do not function properly and she has asthma. Like many athletes, she had been given Oral-Turinabol, a steroid produced by pharmaceutical company Jenapharm. It was approved for some illnesses, but not meant as a performance enhancer. Jenapharm won't discuss out-of-court settlements with the athletes. It has said it is not culpable, since the drug was legal in the German Democratic Republic but misused by trainers.
But lawyers say files from the East German secret police, the Stasi, show company officials discussed the doping programme with the government and trainers on several occasions.
Rica Reinisch knows all about the effects of Oral-Turinabol. She took three golds at the 1980 Moscow Olympics in the 100m and 200m backstroke and relay, holds five world records, and won gold in 1981 in the European Championships. SHE was just 14 when her coach gave her a blue pill after training one day.
She says: "Two years later the problems began. I collapsed at training, suffering from inflamed ovaries. I went to see the doctor. He seemed distressed. He told me simply that I should give up top-level sport."
It was only after the collapse of the Berlin Wall that Reinisch discovered what she had been supplied with. Now 40, she has had two stillborn children and has a heart condition that prevents strenuous exercise. She works as a TV presenter and lives in Hamburg.
Catherine Menschner tells an equally sad story. She won her first swimming competition when she was six and was sent to a sport academy where her mentors handed her boxes of "sweets" filled with brightly-coloured pills. By 11, she could do 100 push-ups and weightlift 65lb after "earning" a place in a guinea-pig group in which the effects of early doping were monitored.
Her career was ended by spinal injury when she was 14 and now she suffers from back pain, breathlessness and infections of her over-sized lungs. Her doctors have told her she cannot lift anything heavier than 250 grams - "That's a block of butter," she says with despair. She also blames the drugs for seven miscarriages. She works in Berlin, aged 41, as a journalist.
Doping also took a terrible toll on weightlifter Roland Schmidt. He took so many pills that in 1980 his body ceased producing male hormones. He grew breasts to a size 36DD that had to be amputated. And in a terrible twist of irony, those breasts developed cancer before they were removed.
Now a lifeguard in a town in Saxony, he says: "You can imagine how I felt, a strapping fellow suddenly carrying around these female breasts. "I suffer liver problems and nightmares. Justice should be done for me and the many
