This is an interesting article that raises the issues and the problems
involved in revoking past records absent a positive test result.
November 4, 2005
Germans Seek to Cleanse a Long-Lasting Stain
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
International Herald Tribune
The energy and optimism in Anne Jakob's voice are palpable as she talks
about the quest to rewrite some of the sporting wrongs of the past century.
But Jakob, head of legal affairs at the German athletics federation, knows
she will need more than enthusiasm and the conviction that her cause is
just. She will need proof and confessions if the committee for which she is
the workhorse is going to wipe out national German track and field records
tainted by doping and give the current generation of athletes a fresh start.
"The final legal finding will be so difficult," Jakob said in an interview
by telephone from the federation's office in Darmstadt. "Maybe it will not
be difficult to get all the information and review it and review the court
cases. But it will be difficult to make the connections that we will
require.
"Still, we want to give a sign that we are dealing with this issue of doping
and that times have changed now. Most of our athletes don't want to talk
about it anymore. They say, 'Leave me alone with all that stuff.' But we
want to show that we are not the kind of federation that is content as time
goes by and everything is hidden under a certain number of years. We want to
show we are doing something actively against the system that existed before
and against this really big problem."
It is too early to say if sports are entering a heavy rewriting phase, but
there are certainly welcome signs that there will be an earnest push in that
direction. In Europe, Jakob and the Germans are scrutinizing records, many
of them set by athletes from the former East Germany, whose regime used its
phenomenal, steroid-fueled sports success for propaganda purposes. In the
United States, lawmakers are preparing legislation recommending that sports
leagues strike down records tainted by performance-enhancing drugs, too.
Major League Baseball's case is particularly tricky, because some of the
records that might be questioned, including Barry Bonds's single-season home
run mark of 73 in 2001, were set when steroids were not banned in baseball.
That ban did not come until 2002, and the sport began testing only in 2003.
It has yet to create credible penalties, with first-time offenders receiving
mere 10-day suspensions, which is why Senators John McCain and Jim Bunning,
a Hall of Fame pitcher, are planning to reintroduce legislation that would
standardize drug testing and sanctions for professional team sports in the
United States and follow the World Anti-Doping Agency norm of two-year bans
for first offenses.
That proposal, which would bring the United States in line with the Olympic
movement, would seem to have a fine chance of eventually passing muster. But
revising record books, however noble-minded, remains a long shot, for both
legal and practical reasons.
The best example of success in recent years was in weightlifting, which
changed all its weight classes and started afresh in a response to
credibility concerns brought on by doping. In 1999, Helmut Digel, a former
German athletics federation president who is one of the architects of
Germany's current record review, proposed that track and field allay its
doping concerns by starting fresh with its world records in 2000, but his
proposal was soundly rejected by the IAAF.
The International Olympic Committee has also rebuffed attempts to amend
'We want to give a sign that we are dealing with this issue of doping.'
Olympic results from the 1970s and 1980s based on new doping evidence. In
1998, it rejected an appeal by the British Olympic Committee on behalf of
swimmer Sharron Davies that sought acknowledgment in the Olympic record book
that Petra Schneider had admitted being involved in East Germany's doping
program. Schneider defeated Davies by a huge margin for the gold in the
women's 400-meter individual medley in 1980.
IOC officials expressed concern about the ramifications of opening the door
to such amendments. It now has a three-year statute of limitations for
protests involving Olympic results, although the World Anti-Doping Agency's
statute of limitations is eight years.
Many of the records at issue in Germany's investigation go back more than 10
years. Without a positive drug-test result, it is exceedingly difficult to
prove that somebody cheated on a given day, and nobody has yet been able to
prove, for example, that Marita Koch of East Germany was cheating on Oct. 6,
1985, in Canberra, when she ran 400 meters in 47.60 seconds during the World
Cup, a world record that no one has come close to threatening in the two
decades since.
On that same day and track, four of Koch's compatriots - Silke Gladisch,
Sabine Rieger, Ingrid Auerswald and Marlies Göhr - set a world record of
41.37 seconds in the 4x100-meter women's relay that still stands the test of
time but not suspicion.
German trials since reunification have proved that East Germany engaged in
systematic, state-sponsored doping: administering steroids to thousands of
athletes, including some preteens, often without their knowledge. That often
resulted in serious health problems later in their lives. Such athletes
should be perceived as victims, not frauds, but that doesn't mean that their
drug-enhanced marks should stand.
Ines Geipel agrees. She was one of those youngsters, and it was her request
this year that her name be removed from the German record book that
persuaded the German athletics federation to undertake a re-examination of
every record.
Geipel, under her maiden name of Ines Schmidt, was part of a 4x100 relay
team that set a national club record of 42.20 seconds in 1984. Now a
successful author, she wants to play no more part in a sham. So far, she is
the only former track star to make such a request.
Koch continues to deny any impropriety, although reports in Germany, based
on examination of files of the Stasi secret police, assert that there are
records that she was administered steroids on a regular basis.
The Stasi files will be a big part of the German federation's investigation,
but Jakob takes pains to emphasize that this is not exclusively an
investigation of the former East, even though 22 of the national records in
question were set by East German athletes before unification in 1990.
"Most people or journalists only talk about the East Germans, and they were
part of the system, and it was automatic that if you were in the top 10 or
20, you got those substances," Jakob said. "But it's not that the problem
just existed in the East. People in the Western part were doped as well, but
the difference was there was no system behind them, so you have no papers,
no files, no proof, because they did it individually."
Perhaps the biggest problem with ripping up the record book decades later is
that there is no certainty that those who are benefiting were clean
themselves. Drug testing was not nearly as sophisticated or comprehensive in
the 1970s and 1980s. But erasing a bogus benchmark does have one undeniable
benefit. It gives hope to the next generation of runners or swimmers or home
run hitters, and that should give Jakob and her committee strength as they
investigate curiously low numbers like Koch's 47.60 seconds in the long
months ahead.