East German State Sponsored Olympics Program

The Munich 1972 Games of the XX Olympiad, historically noteworthy chiefly because Palestinians murdered eleven Israeli athletes and one policeman, made athletic history as well. Athletes from the GDR were especially impressive, taking 20 gold, 23 silver, and 23 bronze medals--the third highest number of medals after the US and USSR. In Mexico in 1968, by contrast, the GDR had come in fifth in the international medal count, bringing nine each of gold and silver and seven bronze. The level of GDR competitiveness from 1972 through 1988 was striking not least because its population was about 17 million, a fraction of the population of the world's chief Cold War rivals. By 1992 in Barcelona, the GDR had been collapsed into the Federal Republic of Germany; German athletes took home the third most medals, behind rather than ahead of the Americans for the first time in a decade.

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es beginning in the mid-1970s demonstrate that the concept and phrase had decisively entered Western discourse. In 1976, much was made of the "barrage of women's [swimming] records" being set by GDR women in the qualifying run-up to the Montreal Games. Strenk acknowledges the gossip surrounding the unfeminine appearance of female GDR athletes and the media attention being given to "drugs, steroids, muscle mass, secret training techniques, etc.," and he cites comments by American female athletes to the effect that "they would not want to look like the DDR girls if that is what is necessary to win." But Strenk goes on to comment that "with some exceptions, the East Germans are not that much 'bigger.'" And more: "It's time that people started realizing that all this talk of drugs, 'buffers' (to conceal the use of drugs), muscle mass, etc., is missing the point." The point, declares Strenk, is that the "sports miracle" is to be attributed to "diplomatic, economic and social factors" informing the GDR's sports program, most notably state sponsorship and subsidization of athletes. He quotes Manfred Ewald, head of the GDR sports program, touting the country's "physical culture and sport . . . [which] corresponds with the humanist pol
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Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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