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Gummel won gold at the Olympic Games in Mexico in 1968 (archive image)
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Olympic athletics champion Margitta Gummel died at the age of 79.
As her daughter confirmed to the German press agency, the former shot putter of the SC DHfK Leipzig died on Tuesday after a long illness in Wietmarschen, Lower Saxony.
The sports information service also reported.
The Magdeburg-born athlete celebrated the greatest success of her career with her Olympic victory in Mexico City in 1968.
She was the first woman in the world to hit the 19-meter mark at 19.61 meters.
In the same year she was named "GDR Sportswoman of the Year".
In total, Gummel set four world records.
In 1972 she won the silver medal at the Olympic Games in Munich behind the Soviet shot putter Nadezhda Tschischowa.
Also at the European Championships in 1966, 1969 and 1971, she was only inferior to her permanent rival from the USSR and won three EM silver.
Gummel as "First Lady of GDR doping"
In the 1990s there were reports that Gummel was supposed to have been part of the doping system in the GDR.
Even before her Olympic victory in Mexico, she is said to have taken the anabolic steroid "Oral-Turinabol", which was used in organized state doping.
As the first woman ever, the drug was administered to her, as reported in the Berliner Zeitung.
Gummel's former teammate Brigitte Berendonk called her the "First Lady of GDR doping".
With her book called »Doping.
From research to fraud «Berendonk was involved in the processing of state doping in the GDR.
In 1977 Gummel was the first GDR Olympic champion to receive her doctorate and was general secretary of the GDR college and technical school sports association until the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Between 1977 and 1990 she was a personal member of the National Olympic Committee of the GDR.
After unification, she worked in the Brandenburg State Sports Association and was also a member of the NOK for Germany until 1993.
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