The mic is hot and the game is on. You're listening to News for the Nation podcast by Aces Nation, where we talk about nutrition, sports performance, the journey of a student athlete, and more. I'm Claire. I'm Zach. Time to level up. Welcome back sports fans. Today we're going over another documentary as it relates to sports. Today we're going over Doping for Gold. It's a story about the East German Women's Olympic teams during the 1970s, back when the Berlin Wall was still a thing.
Claire, you've seen pictures of the Berlin Wall? Yes. Yeah. Have you seen video of them tearing it down? Yes. Yeah, because it was in the documentary, for sure. I've seen it before, though. I saw it probably in my history class. Nice. Claire, can you name? Any years and locations where the Olympics took place? Where were they? Look, I don't know where all the 1970s ones were, but are you just saying in general in general? Yeah, come on. Oh, Beijing. OK, what? Eighteen. Two
thousand eight or two thousand eight. Oh, sorry. London 2012. Hey, all right. That's all I got. Yeah, I know. I mean, there was the the weird covid year one that happened in like 2021. It was like off it by a year, you know. Yeah. But anyway, so we're going to be going over just to review after we watched it. Yeah, let's just jump right into it. So what the story is about doping for gold back in the 70s, like maybe the
late 60s. uh, steroid use became like a really popular thing, especially in the, what do they call it? The Eastern block or like Eastern part of the, the nation or the world, um, over in Russia and these other countries that were under Soviet influence. So this is just a recollection or just a documentary that explains how standardized and secret it was. Um, kind of a amazing story that I've never heard of. I never heard of this before until we watched this documentary. So
it was great. There was your first reaction to everything when you saw it. It was pretty eye opening and wild. I think most of the time when you think about performance enhancing drugs or steroid use, you think of somebody voluntarily. and knowingly taking those things to enhance their performance. But this was interesting because these young female athletes, what were they? Middle and high school age athletes were unknowingly given these basically testosterone supplements
or drugs, a form of synthetic testosterone. unknowingly um trusting their coaches and their doctors for you know some pretty i don't want to say necessarily like sinister but were definitely ulterior motives and um it was very sad to see that it ruined some of their lives yeah so basically everything that happened was uh Athletes like youth athletes, these kids were identified at an early age as
being really good in their sports. Right. And so then the clubs that were somehow probably controlled by the government, I think, would after they identified them, they would bring them in to like these sports club training places that were basically like feeder systems to the Olympic national team. And they would just start. putting them on this program where doctors were involved in giving them these these drugs. I think most of it was in pill form until later
when they started. So they were given these pills and parents just outright trusted doctors. I mean, pretty much as you should. Right. Are you a thing? Yeah. You would hope that you could just do that, that someone based on their ethical oaths that you could trust them. Right. Yep. Sport coaches were in on it too. And then a myriad of politicians that were controlling the country were definitely in on as well with heavy Soviet
influence. So East Germany being the side that was really heavily influenced by the Soviet Union at the time. So anyways, that's that's what it was in this documentary kind of explained how how they went about it. as far as the officials and the people in the nation, coaches, politicians and stuff, how they went about administering this, keeping records about it, basically almost
perfecting how they did it, right? Yeah. And then the consequences of that on the physical consequences and the societal consequences that the athletes had to face. because of something they didn't know was going on. And they they definitely didn't want to happen to them. Yeah, exactly. Really fascinating and crazy story. And definitely saddening for to hear some of the athletes continue to talk, you know, about where they are now and what they faced during
that time. So let's kind of go through the beginning of it. Like what what was your reaction to how much protocol was put into play for this, you know? Yeah, I mean, there was obviously a lot of thought put into how this strategy was going to play out. I do think in a way, again, they were very strategic and they were giving these things in pill form. They were giving them among other things. So it wasn't like, here's this one pill, take it. They were giving them. other
things as well. So probably other vitamins and supplements to kind of shield the, you know, maybe suspicion of that they're getting something they shouldn't be getting. And even from like a shot perspective, too, like when you think about things that promote, again, a vitamin perspective, B12 shots are very common. It's, you know, people a lot of times prefer to get a B12 injection. you know, like once a month or every couple of weeks versus taking pills every day, whatever
the case might be. So, you know, it's not necessarily something that was out of the ordinary. And I think that the fact that those doctors and coaches were kind of taking advantage of those young
athletes is very saddening. But it was fascinating to kind of see, especially at that time, like how much precision was put into these protocols for these athletes of dosage and and maybe There could have been a little bit more from a dosage perspective Considering how many harmful side effects there were But yeah, it was just very interesting to see something that probably as a dietitian I would put time and consideration to into like a supplement protocol So it was
very interesting. But at the same time it was kind of like that dark side of of what you would want to do from maybe more of like a supplement or vitamin protocol. Yeah. You've seen Icarus, right? I have. Yeah. So I thought it was interesting to compare the two because I've seen Icarus and definitely this system seemed more precise, as you said, than the other one. And also it seems like they were they had a better handle on keeping it under wraps for a longer period of time. Right.
So I think one of the doctors or someone in the documentary that was speaking made a joke about like, that's how the only reason it was as documented and specific as it was, was because they were Germans doing the work. And that's the reason why they wrote everything down and kept everything to protocol. So, but yeah, I thought it was. Amazing, not necessarily in an ethical way, but maybe like in a how well they kept it under the radar. It's just incredible how they did that.
Yeah, just overall, like fascinating from a weirdly curious perspective of mine of just like, wow, you guys really thought that through and like didn't want anything to happen. But they also had no regard for. these these kids, all they cared about was getting the gold, winning money and, you know, like bringing fame to their nation for financial gain. And that was another that was another joke they made was this was a socialist
country at the time. And ironically, they were driven by capitalist goals to get more money for themselves. You know? Yeah. So that was just interesting all around. Like sometimes I just can't even wrap my head around like what word to use there. But they definitely had everything and they kept they kept tweaking the method. Right. To make sure that it was working, to make sure that they didn't get caught. You know, they have one. They had the one slip up that they
mentioned because it was a coach's misstep. I'm sure that coach got fired or something. I don't know. Who knows what happened to them back then.
But They probably disappeared but yeah they um it was interesting of how it evolved and they learned when they needed to cycle off of the the drugs because there was no in competition or there was only in competition testing there was no like random testing which if you're an athlete now you know that the NCAA or other organ like governing bodies of sports will do random drug testing now for that reason. Yeah, it was
crazy for sure. Just wild. Yeah, I do Sorry, I was gonna say I do think that these types of documentaries and I don't know if you noticed this but when I was watching it on YouTube Because it was what was it a PBS documentary series something like that. I think it was called secrets of the
dead Yeah, something like that. It was wild to me how many other like docu series or videos came up about Doping in sports on there and then on YouTube But then also when you think about just how many are out there in general there are so many out there and it just all of them kind of beg the question like will this will doping and the use of performance enhancing drugs and some substances and banned substances ever stop in sports I would argue no In an ideal world
probably but I think it's important these you know documentaries and things coming out that athletes understand the consequences of taking them and while it may give you short -term results the stress that you're putting on your musculoskeletal system your hormones your endocrine system all of these things is going to really wreak havoc on your body later on like you could have such success in a short amount of time but Mean and you can see this in like a lot of bodybuilders
to like bodybuild that the bodybuilding world is very runs rampant with performance enhancing drugs and there are a lot of them that struggle with really serious chronic health issues later on in life because Because of the use of those drugs, but also because what they put their body through while on those substances Yeah But let's let's Cover the Olympic, I don't know success.
Yeah, they had What they they won quite a bit the things that I remember were swimming they dominated I don't know what year it was all but one gold they got Yeah, I think they got uh runner -up in volleyball but it was the farthest they've ever gone in the nation's history but i don't know how and then uh there was javelin uh i believe that yeah yeah i mean just like it was crazy how many like events but it was mostly the the female athletes like right that's what the whole
documentary was really about was the female athletes but also like the program in general um even though there were Males going through that through at the time and one that unfortunately passed away. Yeah while in training so Yeah, that was
unfortunate as well. Yeah my question I guess would be is I would be curious to see where they were in the last Olympics or like in international competition leading up to those Olympics and If they like came out of nowhere why people weren't questioning that Yeah, I'm sure that once the country was formed and they were competing in the Olympics, I'm sure something like that happened. But they probably weren't at the top at the time. I'm sure it was like, yeah, the U .S., Russia,
somebody else. Right. Right. With Germany being split at the time, I'm sure it was. not as great for both of those countries to have some of their athletes one place, some of their athletes in the other place. But yeah, I bet they did come out of nowhere. We'll have to. Right. Look that up. And I think you could tell, especially for the, you know, American, the female American swimmers, they were obviously very skeptical because, you know, in the documentary, they were
saying here you have four on the U .S. team at the time, four of the best female swimmers in the world on that Olympic team. and they're losing everything. The only thing they won was a relay because they were all together, but it's that red flags in my brain. So that was very interesting of them coming out of the woodwork and just dominating. So in the documentary, they had one volleyball player that they followed. The javelin throw was another one. Javelin? And then to the ladies.
OK, the lady with the darker hair. She was a swimmer. She was a swimmer. OK. Yeah. So specifically. Yeah. Swimmer and whistleblower. Yeah. Yeah. She was probably the one that was a person that was one of the most skeptical and had a lot of questions, you know, as to what was happening to them and things like that as their body was changing. So. I'll just go through the volleyball player and like her experience. So one thing I remember they highlighted was during one Olympics
or world games or something. She fractured her foot, correct? Yes. And they were like, play on it. Yeah. The their doctor, the Germany's doctor intervened with the like just overseeing hospital doctor. and said, don't do anything, leave it. It's fine. And made her play on it. They overruled the hospital. Yeah, which crazy. But she ended up later in life just having so many different surgeries, I think, because her
body, the wear and tear that her body took. And I can imagine all the benefits that she gained from muscular standpoint. and force output, man. And she gained weight too, right? She's going to have added muscle mass. So now her body's taking on a lot more force in landing, right? And those things are already high, but I can only imagine. So she ended up having some injuries and stuff, not necessarily any other health effects that I remember. Do you remember anything for
her? She went through 13 surgeries. I think she had a lot of back issues. She was missing a kneecap. And like hormonally, yeah, she had a lot of issues because at that point she basically was not really, she didn't have feminine features. She had very masculine features, but she was obviously still a woman. I remember her saying her hands grew very large and she used to, her family maybe or people made fun of her because her hands were so big, her face shape changed, her voice changed.
uh it got deeper so physically yeah she had a ton of issues i i don't know if you saw the way that she walked but it was she could not move well um and then hormonally she just there was she it was a point in no return for her yeah i think she was the one that mentioned uh she couldn't wear jewelry anymore because uh people in society just normal people would just make fun of her because yeah They thought she was like transgender or something. You know, they
didn't. Obviously, she had no control of it and she was still trying to work through everything that happened to her because she was given those drugs at, you know, adolescent age, like at the age of puberty. So once she starts having those hormones, you're right, like everything's changing for her and they continue to change because she took them for years, you know. Yeah, unknowingly. Yeah, yeah, unknowingly. And so it's just very
tough. to manage your everyday life when people are just ridiculing you for the way that you look. Right. And yeah, I can only imagine emotionally what she went through trying to manage how she actually felt inside and how people thought she looked on the outside. Yeah. Yeah. So I think her and then the javelin thrower were the two that had the probably worst. two of the worst outcomes, at least the ones that they interviewed from a physical and hormonal perspective. Right,
right. Andreas was was his name originally. Her name was Heidi at the time, right, when she was
in there, Javelin Thor. But yeah, just like so far on the spectrum of things that happened to her that the changes that happened in her body because of those those hormones and those drugs just it was like irreversible for her and so she became Andreas and went through the change from a woman to a man so yeah and then had to deal with all that stuff as well you should definitely check out the documentary to see this stuff that we're talking about. But it's just incredible.
I think the people who made it through, I mean, so far, we're just mentioning two out of the, what, thousands of kids that went through this. But like how strong they have to be as people, you know, like through that situation and every day afterwards. to carry the physical burdens, carry the emotional burdens that they have, the scars they may have mentally. But yeah, it's incredible. So yeah, just the hormone change was just too much for her at that point. And
so now, Andreas. And then there was... The swimmer, what was her name? The dark -haired swimmer, I forget. It was sort of an R. I can't remember what it was though. Yeah, she luckily did not have a ton of physical issues. And I believe she got out of it rather early. She didn't take them for as long because she was one of the whistleblowers that told her parents of like, these are all the issues I'm having. I don't know what's going
on. And they took her to an outside OBGYN or gynecologist who said, You need to stop swimming now or you're gonna have irreversible damage to your entire body all that stuff which Unknowingly, I don't think obviously it was not the swimming. It was the supplement. It was the the drugs but so she was pulled out and then I think her mom found out what was going on and went to the club and talked to you know yelled at the coaches and the director and all of that and While I
do believe she had a couple miscarriages. She was able to eventually have children but the Obviously the mental load of all of that happening and kind of being taken advantage of and all of those things at a young age but also kind of the the mental battle you have to go through of because she and her mom Reprimanded the club and left all of her legacy was kind of quote unquote tarnished. Obviously, the drugs play
a part in that as well. But imagine that, you know, being one of a standout on your sport team before even having those things done to you. And, you know, having many, many records, you know, just being a big name in the club and essentially being blacklisted because of calling something out that was morally Corrupt and wrong that somebody did to you. I just that I think in and of itself mentally and emotionally for a child For 15 year
olds is crazy. Um, but then to have to kind of like carry that and work through that your entire life on top of all of the other things is A testament, I think like you said to their strength as you know, just human beings Yeah, I agree. It's it's crazy that she even In the documentary, she was able to go back into her old club, but they hadn't moved her picture and maybe one of her friends
pictures that was also not there anymore. But yeah, just, you know, at the time, even when she got out and everything was still going on, you know, before everything stopped, before the wall came down and, you know, like all the the doping in East Germany dissolved. Can you imagine her old friend group and stuff? I mean, she's
probably ostracized by a lot of people. uh right community because some of it there were some athletes later on they were talking about um that were kind of like not they didn't really see a huge issue with it you know they kind of like brushed it under the rug of like we were the best olympic team east germany has ever had blah blah blah blah and kind of like they were just supplements and things like that so that was also very dangerous of like the buy -in to
that as well Yeah, it was like a belief that it was all their hard work that got them to that point. Yeah, I mean, there are people like that that exist, too. So. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, just just crazy to see that. But it definitely got my wheels turning of just the the supplement industry, all of these. Just all of substances that are available to athletes, like I said, in some arenas where these performance enhancing
drugs are pretty common. um and just like the mass like unregulation of them is crazy so it just again opened my eyes to looking at it from like from a young athlete's perspective of just such night negativity and not understanding what these things are what they could be exposed to and what the signs and symptoms are if maybe they are exposed to something like that whether they know it or not Shows the importance of the
third party testing for sure. Yeah, absolutely And also testing and not taking random supplements from anybody Regardless of your if they're your coach or not Yeah, you're not taking supplements that that aren't yours right that you have purchased or whatever yourself So yeah, I was just about to say that so I think that puts light to it for me what I kind of was reminded of is the the social pressures that are existing, you know, in sports when there's, there's expectations
out there. And really just got me thinking a little bit more. I know we're not necessarily in the doping aspect, you know, in my setting in the D two setting, but still this day and age with athletes with all the social media and things like that and to feel an expectation, feel the pressure to be something you know, for the entertainment of other people, I think sometimes is maybe not thought of as much by a strength
coach or someone in my position. So I was definitely a reminder of you have to live with the results that you get after the buzzer goes off, you know, or whatever. And just know how that how that plays into. everyday life and the continuation of things like that. So there's a lot. Yeah, a lot of things, you know, and making sure that you're doing the best that you can in an ethical way for the athletes that you're working with. Those are the things that that kind of came to
mind for me. Yeah. After I got over the initial shock that this thing existed and I had no idea about it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's something that well, one, we're we obviously don't live. There so maybe that's one reason why we're not
super Exposed to it. But also, you know, it's kind of like a tarnish obviously on there on that legacy of like look how good we are But we were only this good because we cheated So, I don't know that it's broadcasted Claire can I can I bring to light something based on Location and things that you didn't know about Sure. I grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma. It's about 40
minutes away from Tulsa, Oklahoma. In all of my years growing up and learning about the history of Oklahoma, not once in school did they teach us about the Tulsa race riots. Not once. I grew up 40 minutes away from there. Not once. That's the travesty is that things even in your area can get swept under the rug if people don't allow it to be taught or don't allow it to be in books.
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a demo. Let's go. So, yeah, you should check out the documentary. I mean, I think it's I think it's an interesting watch. Maybe it's maybe it's not your prime time watch, but I mean, you can find it on YouTube. You could just listen to it, you know, while you're at work or doing other things on your computer. So I don't know if it's
streaming. We only found it on YouTube. So yeah, I doubt it because it was on PBS but yeah, just just good to look at and listen to and just be skeptical of things Yeah, I again we talked about the third -party testing But like you said with the pressures, I think that's important too of like, you know Obviously all athletes these days want to be the best and they don't you know maybe not all of them but a lot you know are looking to play in college play professionally um get
to where they can be better than their competition and finding little ways to edge them out and I think that's where sometimes they're led astray and obviously where you can see firsthand in this documentary that these athletes were not these athletes but these coaches and doctors were looking for a quick fix to make them better and faster and stronger as quickly as possible.
So I would hope that this is a lesson that most of the time you're not going to find a magic pill that is going to do that other than hard work and doing the little things like eating right, sleeping, recovering, maybe supplementing or taking things if they fit in your routine.
If you've talked to a dietitian and you know a doctor and figured out what's going to work best for you but you know, these quick fixes online and on social media of this supplement is jam -packed with XYZ and all this stuff that is either not good and too high amounts for you, filled with banned substances that you have no idea are or, you know, like I think some people don't understand that caffeine up to a certain extent is a banned substance in a lot of drug
testing world. So if you have X amount of caffeine in your system, you can pop negative or positive, whatever you want to call it, on a drug test. So I think that's important. Also, like, you know, if you're too many poppy seeds, whatever, you could pop positive for opioids, you know? So there's all these things that could happen. And I think just these athletes nowadays need to be so, so, so careful, especially with the internet and social media. Yeah, I agree. I agree.
I did have that happen to an athlete of Florida State. The poppy seeds. Mm -hmm. Man, didn't that happen to Elaine Binnis on Seinfeld? I don't know, probably. I think so, yeah, now that you mention it. That's the second thing today, it's reminding me of Seinfeld. Relax on the lemon poppy seed muffins, guys. Yeah, don't have five or twelve. Only too many. Yeah, only have one. No. Anyway, that's my spiel about supplements. Thanks for listening everybody. We will catch you on the next one. See ya.