Report exposes decades of West German doping

(France24) The West German government helped fund a wide-scale doping programme from the 1970s onwards, with evidence of drug use among the country’s athletes stretching back to the 1950s, according to a leaked report seen by German media.

Politicians in Germany have demanded the full publication of a report that claims doping was rife among West German athletes from the 1970s onwards and possibly for decades before.

The report, from researchers at Berlin’s Humboldt University and entitled Doping in Germany from 1950 to Today, claims that state-funded doping of sportsmen was common in a number of fields, including athletics and football.

Included in the report, which was compiled after three years of research, are testimonies from more than 50 witnesses. But its publication has so far been held back by legal issues surrounding the revealing of the names of those involved.

However, a version of the 800-page dossier, dating from 2012, was seen by German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung, which published extracts in an article Sunday.

According to the newspaper, the report claims that systematic doping of West German athletes took place from October 1970 with the creation of the Institute for Sport Science (BISp).

The Institute, which fell under the authority of the country’s interior ministry, used state funds to conduct “an extensive series of tests on performance enhancing substances” such as anabolic steroids, testosterone, oestrogen and EPO over a period of decades, Suddeutsche Zeitung quotes the report as saying.

Doping at Munich Olympics

Doping was prevalent at the 1972 Munich Olympics, researchers said, and at the Montreal Olympics four years later.

At the latter, German athletes were said to have received around 1,200 injections of Berolase and thioctacid - a drug cocktail nicknamed Kolbe after the great German rower Peter-Michael Kolbe.

But there is also evidence of doping taking place long before the creation of the BISp, said the report.

It claims that an unspecified number of footballers in West Germany’s 1954 World Cup-winning team were given the methamphetamine Pervitin, which had been in common use among German soldiers during World War II.


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