East German distance runners

Interesting question...hmmmmm. I saw Kunze run and I admired his smooth style and obvious endurance. Maybe he was clean. Maybe he was on stuff that helped him recover, but your point about his talent shown already as a young teenager lends one to believe he had what it took to be a star.

About Cierpinski, I am still mad that he doped and caused Frank Shorter to miss out on winning a second gold medal. Frank deserves the second gold and the IOC should give it to him and give him the recognition he deserves. It has been publicly disclosed that Cierpinski was being doped at the time of the Montreal Olympic Games. I recall looking at Cierpinski's performance times from races in the year or two prior to the Games: they were mediocre compared to the other competitors in the marathon.

I don't think we will ever know the full truth.

The East German athletic machine is pretty interesting. When one hears of E. German athletes, the first reaction is - drugs. However, in terms of cold war propoganda, the Soviet Union was the real "scary one." Since I think most would answer E. Germany to "who had the most doped athletes?", yet answer the Soviet Union to "who was the big threat?", I think it is more than just cold war propoganda. Not sure if this makes any sense. Also, I have always gotten the impression that the focus is more on the E. German female athletes than the males.

It would suck to be a clean athlete under the system as few would ever believe it. Even with youngsters, it would not be surprising to hear that they were being doped even at a young age. I wonder if we will ever know. Also, what they were doing with their distance runners would be interesting to know.

A while ago, someone posted about the book "Faust's Gold: Inside the East German Doping Machine". Personally, I haven't read it. Looked like it would be somewhat interesting but got average reviews.

I suppose in a society where sporting excellence was the one way to stand out and improve your lifestyle and travel abroad its quite possible that you would create a situation not disimilar to the Kenyan situation now or the Black Boxer from the Bronx idea. With so few opportunities and a system which was geared 100% towards sporting success I am sure some exceptional talent was unearthed and its not impossible that some of those top performers were clean, its just a shame that we will probably never know and that some of the greatest athletes of their generation may well have been tarred with the same brush as the majority who doped, I guess the only way we would ever know is if one of them spoke out, but it seems like teh likelyhood of taht has gone. Does anyone know what any of these guys are doing now, Kunze, Schildauer, Jorg Peter, Meltze, or even any of the other DDR stars like `Marita Koch or Malese Gohr, teher is very little heard about them.