Marita Koch

Vocation

Lifestyle

Former East German sprint track and field athlete. During her career she collected a remarkable sixteen world records in outdoor sprints, as well as 14 world records in indoor events. She still holds (in September 2012) the world record over 400m from 1985 and held the 200m European record (1979-2015). Koch's achievements, along with the extraordinary performances of many other East German female athletes, aroused suspicion that they were achieved with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs. These drugs were and remain illegal, but were not detectable at the time. In 1991 German anti drug activists Brigitte Berendonk and Werner Franke were able to save several doctoral theses and other documents written by scientists working for the East German drug research program. The documents list the dosage and timetables for the administration of anabolic steroids to many athletes of the former GDR, one of them being Marita Koch. According to the sources Koch did use the anabolic steroid Oral-Turinabol from 1981 to 1984 with dosages ranging from 530 to 1460 mg/year. Koch never publicly admitted to this. However, a letter to the head of the state-owned pharmaceutical company was discovered by researcher Werner Frank, in which Marita Koch complained that Bärbel Wöckel received larger doses of steroids, because she had a relative working in the company. Link to Wikipedia biography