The athletes say the terrible lifelong problems they suffered after being fed steroids by the communist state are a warning to any sportsman who is tempted to cheat. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall , promising kids as young as eight were pumped full of steroids in a win-at-all-costs quest for victory.
It brought more than summer and winter Olympic medals between and β but at a terrible price. The stars of yesterday suffered severe depression , heart conditions, degenerative bone disease and infertility. Some even changed sex because of the drugs. Many spiralled into drink and drug addictions, unable to find work.
Olympic legend Coe, 59, now head of the athletics world governing body the IAAF, was called to account this week in the wake of the Russian doping scandal. Have there been failures? Will I fix them? And for East German athletes, the vast majority duped into taking drugs, that has meant ruined lives. Shot putter Heidi Krieger suffered the opposite effect. Testosterone took her femininity.
She changed sex and now lives as a man, teaching youngsters the dangers of pumping steroids in a bid for sporting glory. Heidi took so many steroids she is now Andreas. Drugs she was forced to take by coaches as a young girl changed her gender and left her with pain in her hips and legs from lifting huge weights while under the influence of steroids.
Nicknamed Hormone Heidi by rivals, she had a full sex-change operation in , completing the physical change. Read more: Doping agency declares Russia and four other countries "non-compliant". Happily married to Ute Krause, a swimmer who was also a victim of the GDR system, Andreas shocks young people with photos of when he was Heidi. We had no choice because we were under a dictatorship.
