Under-fire former GDR sports official apologises to doping victims

Berlin - Former East German top sports official Thomas Koehler on Wednesday apologised to the victims of doping practices in the country, according to M&G news.

But Koehler, a vice-president in East Germany's umbrella sports organisation DTSB from 1981 until German reunification 1990, also came under attack over his statements on doping in the communist country.

Koehler, 70, said in a forthcoming book that East German officials decided to give top athletes doping substances from the early 1970s onwards because other countries were also cheating.

He said that doping occurred with the consent of athletes and that the practices included under-age doping from the age of 16 onwards in some sports such as swimming. But Koehler said he had no knowledge of child-doping.

'I apologise to the victims who really exist. We realised in retrospect that we allowed some mistakes and oversights. We also underestimated a few things, underestimated excess. I regret that as well,' said Koehler on Wednesday in ARD state television.
While Koehler said in the book that no athlete suffered health problems from the steroids, ex-athletes have said in recent years that they were unwitting victims and suffered permanent health problems. Many of them have received compensation from the state.

The organisation of doping victims, DOH, on Wednesday dismissed Koehler's revelations and threatened to take him to court over his alleged ignorance on the issue of child-doping.