I must disappoint all those who fear that I would call for the abolition of doping records and the rewriting of results lists on the 40th anniversary of this fabulous world record. We had this discussion many years ago, vehemently even, in Germany more than elsewhere. Organised sport has given its answer to this question many times.
Over four decades, there have been a thousand opportunities to deal appropriately with this part of the past, with all the tainted medals and records. The real answer from Olympic sport is:
We condemn at every opportunity the Enhanced Games, this perverse project of techno-fascists and investors – but we continue to celebrate our sporting history, with its trillions of lies and injustices.
Today, I would like to share with you part of the story of Marita Koch and this one world record with a document that, for me, was one of the most interesting and instructive I have ever been able to bring to light. For those born later and anyone who did not live in the sporting wonderland called German Democratic Republic, this may be difficult to comprehend. When I discovered it more than 30 years ago in a still untouched file in the Federal Archives (in the freshly processed estate of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany/SED), it certainly helped me to understand and contextualize things a little better.
It is a four-page handwritten letter from Marita Koch, a global star in 1985 – like Boris Becker on the other side of the Wall.
In those years, Marita Koch was honored several times as World Athlete of the Year by various institutions. In January 1986, three months after her legendary world record in Canberra, which was supposed to be the end of her career, she complained about GDR sports chief Manfred Ewald, (President of the East German Gymnastics and Sports Federation DTSB, member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, sentenced to a suspended prison term in 2000 for aiding and abetting bodily harm/child doping, etc.), who had given her an ultimatum and demanded that she continue until the 1988 Olympic Games.
It was a year and a half after the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, where the GDR politburo had planned to take first place in the nation rankings but had to bow to pressure from Moscow and boycott the event.
It was seven months after the IOC session in East Berlin, where Erich Honecker had promised IOC grandee Juan Antonio Samaranch that there would be no further Olympic boycott in Seoul in 1988 and that the East Germans would definitely participate.
‘We (competitive athletes) are an army of volunteers, and anyone who no longer wants to participate or is no longer interested gives up their privileges ...
... anyone who no longer wants to participate gives up their place at university (which the DTSB arranged) and becomes a normal GDR citizen.’
But before I get to this letter, let me broaden the topic a little further:
A few weeks ago, when the American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone ran 47.78 seconds in the rain at the World Championships in Tokyo, the heavily burdened record set by Marita Koch was often mentioned. Less often mentioned was McLaughlin-Levrone's coach, Bob Kersee, who stands for so many medals and records, but not so much for credible, unquestionably clean athletics.
