World Titles Vacated (11) Kornelia Ender (1973, 1975, 1976) Ulrike Tauber (1974, 1977) Petra Schneider (1980, 1982) Ute Geweniger (1983) Kristin Otto (1984, 1986, 1988)
European Titles Vacated (17) Kornelia Ender (1973, 1975, 1976) Ulrike Tauber (1974, 1977) Barbara Krause (1978 tie) Petra Schneider (1979, 1980) Ute Geweniger (1981, 1983) Cornelia Sirch (1982) Kristin Otto (1984, 1986, 1988) Silke Horner (1985, 1987) Anke Mohring (1989)
SWIMMINGWORLDMAGAZINE.COM Total Access members click here at www.SwimmingWorldMagazine.com to read a more detailed account of this story.
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ARDS OF GDR DRUG-INDUCED SWIMMING WORLD VACATES AW
SWIMMERS
by jason marsteller
IN AN UNPRECEDENTED MOVE SINCE SWIMMING WORLD FIRST RECOGNIZED THE YEAR’S BEST SWIMMERS NEARLY 50 YEARS AGO, THE MAGAZINE IS VACATING 11 WORLD SWIMMER OF THE YEAR AWARDS AS WELL AS 17 EUROPEAN TITLES FROM NINE EAST GERMAN FEMALE SWIMMERS.
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ased on a mix of positive tests, personal admissions as well as doping admissions from their coaches, Swimming World Magazine has stripped Kornelia Ender, Ulrike Tauber, Petra Schneider, Ute Geweniger and Kristin Otto of their World Swimmer of the Year awards from the 1970s and ’80s. Those five swimmers—along with Barbara Krause, Cornelia Sirch, Silke Horner and Anke Mohring—have had their European Swimmer of the Year awards vacated as well. In the December 1994 issue of Swimming World Magazine, editor-in-chief Phillip Whitten first broke the news, then provided the first irrefutable evidence— from the Stasi, the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) secret police—that East Germany’s female swimmers were victims of rampant, systematized doping. Ever since, the magazine has routinely called for the East German women who were using performance-enhancing drugs to be stripped of their Olympic medals. These calls to action have continued every time that the International Olympic Committee has elected to strip other Olympians of their medals due to positive doping tests and/or admissions of defrauding the athletic process. Swimming World has always returned the conversation to the East German women, who were part of systemic doping from 1973-89. Whether it was Marion Jones forfeiting her 2000 Olympic medals or Lance Arm-
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kornelia ender
strong returning his medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Swimming World has always reminded the world, “What about the East German women?” This includes the fact that Armstrong lost his medal after the IOC’s self-instituted statute of limitations on taking this type of action, which has always been the IOC’s defense for not making things right regarding the doped-up East German women. What Swimming World Magazine has never done—but is now rectifying—is to follow suit with what it has always charged the IOC to do: strip the druginduced East Germans of their awards. Beginning Dec. 1, each of these SOY titles will be vacated in Swimming World’s archives, with a note regarding who previously had won the award. Unfortunately, the magazine did not publish a top 5 list for its world and regional swimmers in the ’70s and ’80s as it does today. Consequently, there aren’t any runner-up swimmers who could be honored as the rightful swimmers of the year. The IOC, however, does not have that problem. It knows who finished second— and in some cases third when the East Germans placed 1-2 in their events—and who should be honored as Olympic gold medalists. Still today, Swimming World calls for the IOC to make things right by awarding the Olympic medals to those who deserve them, regardless of the IOC’s statute of limitations that the organization has seen fit to ignore in other instances. v
December 2013
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