PILLS
and injections created virile features in shot
putter Heidi Krieger, heightening confusion
about an already uncertain sexual identity. That
led to a sex-change operation in 1997.
ANDREAS Krieger opened a shopping bag in his
living room and spilled out his past: track and
field uniforms, a scrapbook and athlete
credentials from the former East Germany.
The photos on the credentials looked
familiar, but the face was fuller and softer,
the hair covering the ears and draping down the
neck.
This was Heidi Krieger, the 1986 European
women's shot-put champion, perhaps the most
extreme example of the effects of an insidious,
state-sponsored system of doping in East
Germany.
The taking of pills and injections of
anabolic steroids created virile features and
heightened Heidi's confusion about an already
uncertain sexual identity, influencing a
decision to have a sex-change operation in 1997
and becoming known legally as Andreas.
'They
killed Heidi,' Krieger said.
More than 14 years after the fall of the
Berlin Wall, and more than three years after
criminal trials resulted in convictions of East
Germany's top sports official and sports doctor,
Krieger and a number of other athletes are still
trying to resolve legal, medical and
psychological issues related to the secretive
doping programme that was known in euphemistic
terms as 'supporting means'.
Many of the athletes were minors at the time
and say they were given performance-enhancing
drugs without their knowledge.
Karen Knig, a retired swimmer, filed a civil
lawsuit against the German Olympic Committee,
contending that it inherited more than US$2.5
million (S$4.3 million) in assets from East
Germany upon reunification in 1990, and thus
bears responsibility to assist the former East
German athletes.
She is seeking US$12,500 in a test case, and
as many as 140 former East German athletes,
including Krieger, are deciding whether to file
similar complaints.
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A
TEENAGER'S TORMENT
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In 1979, at
age 14, Heidi Krieger began attending
the Sports School for Children and
Youth in Berlin.
It was
affiliated with the sports club Dynamo,
which was sponsored by the Stasi, the
East German secret police.
At 16, Heidi
began to receive blue pills wrapped in
foil. This was the steroid
Oral-Turinabol, but coaches called them
vitamins.
Six months
later, Heidi's clothes no longer fit.
By the time she was 18, she weighed
100kg, had a deep voice, increased body
and facial hair and appeared
mannish.
On the streets
of Berlin, Krieger said, Heidi was
derisively called a homosexual or a
pimp.
Once she was
called a drag queen on a train, in the
presence of her mother. She went home,
removed her skirt, and never wore one
again.
According to
medical research records uncovered,
Heidi received 2,590mg of
Oral-Turinabol in 1986, the year she
won the European shot-put title. The
dosage was about 1,000mg more than what
Ben Johnson got in 1988.
Eventually,
Heidi's powerful muscles and strenuous
workouts began to overwhelm her joints
and skeletal system. By 1991, her
career was over. -- New York
Times
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Last month, a state court in
Frankfurt ruled that Knig's case could proceed.
Indications are that the case could be settled
out of court.
As Krieger sees it, no amount of money could
restore his health, which he considers harmed by
steroid use and secondary effects.
He experiences such intense discomfort in his
hips and thighs, from lifting massive amounts of
weight while on performance-enhancing drugs,
that he can no longer sleep on his side.
Only the mildest physical exertion is
tolerable.
Long unemployed, he now works two days a week
as a clerk for a real estate agent.
As Andreas, he has a goatee, wide shoulders
and a narrow waist, and is handsome in a Three
Musketeers kind of way.
Told this, his wife, Ute Krause, said,
'D'Artagnan,' and he gestured as if sword
fighting, saying 'en garde' to an imaginary
foe.
When discussing the effects of doping,
Andreas became serious and animated, sometimes
emotional, smoking cigarettes and nervously
rubbing his palms.
When he was Heidi Krieger, scratching of the
hands became a compulsive act and sometimes drew
blood.
Though Krieger said he was happy, his life
remains complicated. At 38, he is married to
Krause, 41, a former East German swimmer.
They met in Berlin. Before Ute and Andreas
were wed, he explained to her teenage daughter,
Katja, that he, too, was once a girl.
Katja accepted his explanation and her mother
and Andreas married in May 2002.
Theirs began as a desperate kind of love.
Ute and Andreas were former elite athletes,
damaged by steroids, betrayed by coaches and
officials they trusted and eager to testify
against them.
Both were once given to thoughts of suicide.
They leaned on each other for information and
support. Both had come to believe their
drug-fuelled performances were no longer
legitimate.
Andreas' gold medal from the 1986 European
Championship, now part of a trophy designed as a
steroid molecule, is given as an annual award to
Germans involved in anti-doping efforts.
Krause keeps a framed certificate of her 1978
world ranking in the backstroke in a symbolic
location, over the toilet.
He is glad that he became a man, Krieger
said, explaining that Heidi felt out of place
and longed in some vague way to be a boy.
What makes Krieger angry, Krause said, is a
belief that the steroids essentially made the
decision for Heidi, leaving her unable to sort
out her sexual identity on her own.
In a twist to his story, Krieger is again
receiving hormones every three weeks, this time
as therapeutic injections to maintain his
maleness.
He still feels depression near the end of
each hormonal cycle, and he worries that he is
at a higher risk for cancer.
Still, Andreas said: 'It's better than I had
before.'
In Krause and her daughter, Katja, he has a
renewed sense of family and belonging. And his
wife understands what Krieger experienced as an
athlete in a way that does not need words.
As a swimmer, she had her own problems,
developing bulimia in an attempt to stem weight
gain from steroids.
She struggled with bulimia for 20 years, she
said, and once tried to kill herself by
swallowing sleeping pills and vodka.
'Since we have been together, she has not
thrown up,' Andreas said.
Krause manages two nursing homes as Krieger
struggles to find a job in graphic design in a
region with high unemployment.
When they watch sports, it is with a certain
scepticism about doping.
Now, when he sees a woman throw the shot more
than 20 metres, Krieger said: 'I know this is
not only from drinking water.'
Health Woes
About 10,000 East German athletes were
involved in a state-sponsored attempt to build a
country of 16 million into a sports power.
An estimated 500 to 2,000 former athletes are
believed to be experiencing significant problems
associated with steroids, including heart
disease, testicular and breast cancer,
gynaecological problems, infertility and eating
disorders.
Some female athletes have reported
miscarriages and have had children born with
deformities like club feet.
