East German Doping in the 1976 Olympics

Behind the Berlin wall, the East German government constantly sought ways to prove the superiority of communism to the world and their most successful way of doing this was through sports. Special sports schools were erected and filled with talented children who were trained by full time coaches and looked after by the best physicians to keep them working at their capacities. The government granted special freedoms to successful athletes and sports festivals were given extra funding making them into highly anticipated national events. But the government did not believe that special training and care was enough to secure their athletes' position as the greatest in the world by such a margin to show off the success of communism, so a state sponsored doping program was established.

The East German Sports Performance Committee met with GDR party leaders in 1974 where they decided to use systematic doping to guarantee gold medals at the 1976 Olympics. The plan they came up with would utilize a new pill known as Oral Turinabol developed by chemists at a secret lab in Leipzig.  In order to make sure that the athletes were being given the government ordered drugs, over 3,000 Stasi moles were placed in the sports system to monitor coaches, scientists and athletes and those who were reported to be questioning the program were punished immediately.


Oral Turinabol was an anabolic steroid derived from testosterone, so it had a very intense effect on girls since they had very little testosterone to begin with. This type of steroid also increased muscle mass rapidly and quickened recovery time so that athletes could train longer and harder without needing rest. Girls as young as 12 were recruited from sports schools across the country and were unknowingly given male hormones and steroids without parental consent. Over time, the testosterone in the steroids made the female athletes more and more masculine, and they suffered from side effects such as male-type hair growth, deepened voices, liver and heart disease, depression, infertility, miscarriages and sometimes death.

At the 1976 Olympic Games, the United States was projected to dominate in women's swimming, but the East Germans won 11 out of the 13 races and set world records in nearly all of them. In men's swimming, the East Germans were less successful as the steroids had less of an effect on them, so no one looked into the reason behind the female East German's unbelievable triumph. Feeling robbed, the US team spoke out against the East German team and were dubbed "Ugly Americans" and "sore losers" by the media and East Germany was able to continue their illegal doping as they claimed more and more medals in other sports. It was not until long after the reunification of Germany did the affected East German athletes get compensation for physical damage done to them by the steroids and the US women's swim team receive recognition for being cheated out of their medals.

Sources - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany_at_the_1976_Summer_Olympics#Medalists 

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