Pubdate: Sun, 05 Oct 1997 Source: Houston Chronicle, page 31A and Associated Press Contact: Website: http://www.chron.com/ Statebacked steroid use documented Indictments near for former E. Germany coaches, doctors who gave drugs to athletes By PAUL GEITNER Associated Press HAMBURG, Germany She was 5 years old when she learned to swim, and won her first competition a year later. Then came the special sport school, and later the candy boxes filled with brightly colored pills instead of chocolates. "Every athlete had his box, with his name on it, and these tablets were inside, a small handful," recalled former East German swimmer Catherine Menschner. "As a rule, they had to be taken in front of the coach's eyes. They told our parents they were vitamins, which was strange because we weren't even allowed to take them into the locker room." Soon, she and the other 11yearold girls were knocking off 100 pushups and lifting 65 pounds and more on a weight training machine called "Hercules." Only later, after her career was cut short by a spinal injury, did the willowy blonde with unnaturally broad shoulders realize the "vitamins" were actually steroids and learn how badly they had damaged her health. Now 33 and a documentary filmmaker, Menschner said she still suffers from back pain, chronic infections in her oversized lungs and sudden shortness of breath. She also blames at least one miscarriage on the drugs. She can't even pick up her 8yearold son, Max. After her last hospitalization in 1995, "the doctors told me I shouldn't lift anything heavier than 250 grams (a half pound). That's a block of butter." With German unification and the opening of secret East German government files, prosecutors are going after the coaches and doctors who administered drug cocktails to unsuspecting minors in the hopes of producing medalwinning athletes. The first indictments, for causing grievous bodily harm, are expected this week in Berlin. Charges are expected later against higherups. "The doping in East Germany was different from other places in the world in that it was directed by the state," said Michael Havemann, who is in charge of investigating the former East Germany's use of banned drugs. "And so we want to go there, too, to the crimes of the functionaries and politicians," he said. "It goes to the political top." Despite widespread suspicions about East German athletes over the years, few were ever caught in drug tests, and it was only after German unification that evidence of steroid use began coming to light. East German leaders began experimenting with drugs to improve athletic performance in the 1960s, according to East German secret police documents uncovered in recent years. By the 1972 Olympics, the country of 17 million people was suddenly in the top ranks of medalwinners with the United States and the Soviet Union. "The primary motivation was apparently the state's international prestige and the demonstration of the superiority of socialism ... during the Cold War," said Dr. Werner Franke of the University of Heidelberg, who was appointed by Parliament to study East German files on drug abuse. The use of anabolic steroids, referred to euphemistically in the files as "supporting means," was stepped up dramatically in the 1970s, especially in women's sports where strength was a big factor. At the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal, where East German swimmers won 11 of 13 events, journalists started asking questions about the broad shoulders and deep voices of the East German women. By the 1980s, more than 2,000 athletes preparing for international events were treated with performanceenhancing drugs each year, Franke said. Drugs were given to promising female swimmers generally as young as 14. Fourteen and 15yearold boys and girls were "hormonedoped" in canoeing, kayaking, rowing and various winter sports. In weightlifting, steroid treatments usually began at 16 or 17. Not many of the athletes are willing to admit drug use today, for fear of losing their medals, Havemann said. Out of "several thousand" questionnaires his investigators sent to former East German athletes, 500 to 600 were filled out and returned. The most frequent complaints are liver and kidney ailments, as well as reproductive problems among women and development of femalelike breasts by male athletes. Prosecutors decided to go after coaches and doctors first to build a foundation for future cases against those "who gave the orders," Havemann said. Rica Reinisch, a 1980 Olympic medalist, came forward in 1995 with charges against her former coach, Uwe Neumann. But he wasn't fired from his job with the German swim team until last month, and then only after information surfaced about his alleged role as an informer for the East German secret police. Neumann declined to comment. He did say none of his athletes ever tested positive for banned drugs. Michael Oettel, a scientist who participated in an East German symposium in 1981 on how to dodge International Olympic Committee drug tests, recently came forward to express his regret. East German scientists were kept in the dark about the effects the drugs were having on the athletes, Oettel said, but he conceded no one tried very hard to find out. "This ostrich policy of ignorance can hardly be reconciled with the responsibility of a scientist," he said. "The administration of anabolics to minors for athletic performance shows strikingly how far irresponsible and uncontrolled sports medicine can be driven." For Menschner, apologies are not enough. She has given a statement to prosecutors and expects to be called to testify against her former coaches and doctors. "They were in the end the ones who distributed the drugs," she said. "Nobody forced them to do it. It was their own prestige. They wanted to shine, to show that they could bring an athlete to the winners platform. "I think they belong behind bars. And that they should never again work with children."