Have track and field events been scarred forever by doping? Part - 1

Marita Koch

Just like many athletes from the eastern bloc in the 80s, Marita Koch blitzed through sprint events ranging from 50 metres to 400 metres with utmost ease. But she will forever be remembered for completely obliterating a strong field consisting of stellar names like Olga Vladykina, Leatherwood, Kathy Smallwood Cook and co at the World Cup in ’85 at Canberra. It was an earth-shattering performance, as in the original footage taken, only Vladykina could be captured along with Koch, while nearing the finish line. Rest of them were left way behind. Vladykina achieved her best timing for 400 metres too. But even she couldn’t compete with Koch’s spine-tingling timing of 47.60s.

Since Koch set the world record in the WC in ’85, only Marie-Jose Perec of France has come within 1 second of that time. On expected lines, Koch has always denied she took performance enhancing drugs. As per some doctoral thesis though, recovered from documents written by sports scientists working for the erstwhile East Germany, there seems to be more to it than just an exceptionally well-trained athlete blitzing through sprint events. As per the documents recovered, it is said that Koch used an anabolic steroid, Oral-Turinabol.

Even a secret letter to the head of the state-owned pharmaceutical company, Jenapharm, was said to have been recovered by researcher Werner Franke. In that said letter, Koch complained about her competitor, Barbel Wockel, receiving larger doses of banned substances. Koch had alleged that preferential treatment was given to Wockel, as her uncle was working in that pharmaceutical company. These drugs were illegal even back in the 80s, but perhaps weren’t detectable then.

Some do believe the 400-metre record should be under the name of Frenchwoman Marie-Jose Perec. Perec won the gold medal at ’96 summer Olympics with a timing of 48.25 seconds. If all those allegations against Koch are true, one feels sorry for athletes who were reportedly clean and competed in that era, like Kathy Smallwood-Cook.

In the second part of the article, I would look at more famous world records from the 80s and early 90s that look suspect, and some interesting facts about doping.

You can continue reading part two of the article.