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West German doping revealed in report

A university report into claims that West Germany government doped athletes has been published after parts of the study were leaked.

A report investigating claims that West Germany systematically doped athletes has been published on the website of the Federal Institute of Sport Science (BISp).

The report summarises university research on doping since 1950 in former West Germany that claims athletes were systematically doped with government funding.

Publication of the study, by Berlin's Humboldt University, has reportedly been delayed over data privacy, and an interior ministry spokesman said Sunday these concerns had now been resolved.

Germany's opposition SPD has meanwhile called for Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich and the country's Olympic chief, Thomas Bach, to attend a special parliamentary committee on the affair.

The sports committee will be meeting at the end of the month or early September to discuss the research carried out at the Berlin university and at the Westfaelische Wilhelms University in Muenster.

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Bach and the interior ministry had both called for the study, initiated by the country's Olympic authority DOSB in 2008 and funded by the BISp, to be published in full.

An interim report on the study released two years ago alleged that systematic doping and anabolics research funded by the state took place in the 1970s and 1980s.

The SPD also wants Giselher Spitzer, who led research at Berlin's Humboldt University, and BISp director Juergen Fischer to attend the parliamentary committee meeting.


2 min read

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Source: AAP


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