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| Subject: Manfred Ewald, East Germany's Doping Chief | |
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Date Posted: October 26, 2002 7:17:04 EDT In reply to: died on Oct. 10 's message, "Denison Kitchel, 94, Chief of Goldwater Campaign" on October 26, 2002 7:10:48 EDT Manfred Ewald, the head of sport in East Germany and a chief architect of its state-sponsored system of providing athletes with illicit performance-enhancing drugs, died Monday in Damsdorf, Germany, his hometown. He was 76. The cause was complications of a lung infection, a former colleague, Jochen Grnwald, told Reuters. As minister of sport and president of his country's Olympic committee, Mr. Ewald built a country of 17 million people into a sports power that rivaled the United States and the Soviet Union in the Winter and Summer Games from 1972 through 1988. However, the sophisticated method of identifying young athletes and placing them in sports schools became discredited after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was disclosed in previously secret documents and in court that as many as 10,000 athletes had been given banned substances, primarily muscle-building steroids, to lift their performances. Many of the athletes were minors and were given "little blue pills" without their knowledge under a system known by the Orwellian euphemism of "supporting means." The consequences have been severe. A number of athletes have developed health problems, including cancer, ovarian cysts and liver dysfunction. Some have given birth to babies who were blind or had club feet. A champion shot-putter, Heidi Krieger, developed many male characteristics after heavy steroid use. She decided to have a sex-change operation and take the name Andreas Krieger, later saying the steroid use played a role in that decision. On July 18, 2000, in Berlin, Mr. Ewald and Dr. Manfred Hppner, East Germany's top sports doctor, were convicted of being accessories to "intentional bodily harm of athletes, including minors." Both men were given probation. While Dr. Hppner expressed some regret, Mr. Ewald remained unrepentant. "Communists do not murder people," he said when subpoenaed for trial. "We had no involvement in this matter whatsoever." Manfred Ewald was born in 1926, the son of a tailor. He joined the Hitler Youth in 1938, and six years later he became a member of the Nazi Party. He aspired to be a government administrator and skillfully maneuvered between political systems. When Germany was divided after World War II, Mr. Ewald joined the Communist Party and by 1963, at age 27, became a member of East Germany's Central Committee. He served as sports minister from 1961 until 1988 and as head of the East German Olympic Committee from 1973 until the country collapsed in 1990. His Nazi past became an undercurrent at his trial on doping charges and brought uncomfortable comparisons with gruesome experiments performed by the Third Reich. From 1966 on, hundreds of East German doctors and scientists participated in a government-sponsored plan to provide drugs to athletes. By strengthening athletic performances, it was believed, the obscure communist nation could also heighten its international standing. Dr. Werner Franke, a West German molecular biologist who disclosed the extent of the doping system from files of the East German secret police, called it "one of the largest pharmacological experiments in history." Essentially, the East Germans focused on sports where the fewest number of athletes could win the most medals. They largely avoided team sports in favor of individual sports such as track and field, swimming and cycling. Women's sports were particularly emphasized. After winning 20 gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, East Germany won 40 at the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal, including 11 of 13 events in women's swimming. "Ewald bridged the gap from the Nazi era, and he brought with him an unfortunate wealth of information about pharmaceuticals and an attitude of winning at all costs, winning that had to do with the international political stage," Steven Ungerleider, author of "Faust's Gold" (St. Martin's Press, 2001), which detailed the East German doping system, said yesterday. While many suspected that East German athletes were cheating, the International Olympic Committee looked the other way. Upon becoming president of the I.O.C. in 1980, Juan Antonio Samaranch grew primarily concerned with unifying an Olympic movement riven by American and Soviet boycotts, not with halting drug use. In 1985, Mr. Samaranch presented Mr. Ewald with the Olympic Order, the highest honor in international sports, in an effort to prevent East Germany from boycotting the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea. This would later prove to be one of Mr. Samaranch's most embarrassing moments. Every medal won by East Germany has now been tainted by the specter of drug use, but the I.O.C. has declined to revoke any of the medals, saying that history cannot be rewritten. "Their system was successful if you count the medals," Dr. Don Catlin, who operates the Olympic drug-testing lab at U.C.L.A., said yesterday. "But it was not successful if you count the human tragedy." [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| Subject | Author | Date |
| Eileen Simpson, 84, Memoirist of Life With John Berryman | - | October 26, 2002 7:20:03 EDT |
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