How E Germany killed Heidi

The six Indian athletes, including athletes from the women's Commonwealth gold winning 4 by 400m squad, currently caught in a doping scandal takes one right back to the days before the fall of the Berlin Wall. East German athletes then were part of a systematic doping programme, where they were forced to take dope to enhance athletic performance. Communism is now in the past and East Germany itself is no more but so many athletes, continue to suffer years after. A former shot putter athlete and Berlin resident Birgit Boese says she suffers from an irregular heartbeat, high-blood pressure, diabetes, nerve damage, kidney problems, and a list of other ailments that have made her all but an invalid. She claims she did not know she was being doped but thought they were vitamin pills she was told to take.u00a0

The effects of the systematic doping finally led her to undergo a sex-change operation in 1997.

One person who has become symbolic of the East German doping programme is Andreas Krieger (born Heidi Krieger on 20 July 1966 in Berlin). He was a former German shot putter, who competed as a woman on the East German athletics team. Krieger was systematically and unknowingly doped with anabolic steroids. The effects of the systematic doping finally led her to undergo a sex-change operation in 1997. It was the moment when Heidi died and Andreas was born. He says in a number of press reports, "For me the tragedy is still that I had no choice in determining my sexual identity, the drugs decided my fate. They killed Heidi."

Heidi started taking vitamin pills as a teenager, given to her by her trainer. After six months, her clothes stopped fitting. By the time she was 18 she had developed a deep voice. She began to stay off the streets because passers-by called her queer. A report states that one day when she was with her mother on a train, a male passenger told her that she looked like a drag queen. When Heidi got home, she took off her skirt. She never wore one again.

It would be naive to think that with the fall of East Germany, doping has been stamped out. It is present in sport today, it is not just the Communist countriesu00a0 that doped athletes. Indian athletes could read up about former East German athletes living in crippling pain today. Maybe, they already know about it but have decided the rewards of sporting success outweigh the risks. Or, maybe they think they need to take dope because other countries athletes are taking it too. They may have been forced to do so. Whatever it is, a hotline to Heidi could be life changing for them.

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