West Germany tolerated doping: Researchers

25 January 2012 | 12:21:04 PM| Source: AAP

Two groups of researchers claim that the West German government accepted doping as a necessary evil for the country's athletes to achieve Olympic success in the 1970s and 1980s.

The research was done at Humboldt University in Berlin and at the University of Muenster, in North Rhine-Westphalia state.

"Doping was not done by the state itself, but we found out that people from the Ministry of the Interior, (where) the interior minister is also the sport minister, were guests at important sessions where decisions on the use of anabolic steroids were made," Humboldt University Professor Giselher Spitzer told The Associated Press.

"So, of course they weren't idiots. They were specialised people from the ministry. We think there was knowledge on the side of the state."

In East Germany, doping was systematic under the communist government. But the studies say that while West Germany did not force its athletes to take drugs, the state was not oblivious to the benefits of enhancing sporting performance through science.

The state-controlled and financed Federal Institute of Sport Science was founded in 1970 and conducted extensive research, starting with anabolic steroids before focusing on testosterone when anabolic steroids were banned in the '80s.

"You see the intent to apply steroids, testosterone and so on," Spitzer said.

"The real intention, if you look into the files and speak with the witnesses, the real intention is to use the steroids in sports."

The same doctors involved in the research were able to take that knowledge when issuing advice or treating their athletes.

"That's why we call it systemic doping," Spitzer said.

"There's a systemic connection between research and forbidden substances and in using them for athletes.

"If you ask the witnesses of this time, for example Professor (Wildor) Hollmann of the German Sport University and others, they all say, 'Yes, we knew the political system stood behind us.' So that's their view."

The studies found that federal money was provided for sports medical research to give German athletes help in competing on equal ground internationally, including at the Olympics.

"'Internationally' at this time meant doping," Spitzer said.

However, Spitzer said it was important to note that "at no time was every athlete doped" in West Germany - in contrast to East Germany.

In weightlifting or the throwing disciplines, the extent of doping may have been 90 percent of athletes at the highest level, but "we found there was a hidden struggle within the national teams, since the 50s, of dopers against the non-dopers," Spitzer said.

Now, after three years of research, the historians' 500-page report is being subjected to German privacy law to see what names can be left in and which must be taken out before the findings are presented.

"We do historical work to see if there was doping and how much, how it was working and how we can avoid it in future," Spitzer said. "If sport loses the confidence of spectators, of the fans, then sport is no longer interesting."

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