Obituary for Margitta Gummel: How far can you push?

Icon: enlarge

Margitta Gummel, world record holder, Olympic champion - by what means?

Photo: imago sportfotodienst / imago images / Pressefoto Baumann

Margitta Gummel is one of those people whose sporting life should really have two stories to tell.

It is the story of the successful athlete, world record holder and Olympic champion, and it is the story of doping in GDR sport, the anabolic steroids tests in Leipzig, in which Margitta Gummel was involved.

And since the two stories are tangled up, it's complicated.

The accusation that the performance of GDR athletes was reduced to doping has been raised again and again.

Margitta Gummel, who died on Tuesday at the age of 79, was without a doubt a very talented shot putter, she had the speed, the athleticism, the punch.

She was better than many others, that is undisputed.

The fact that she was able to increase her record from 17.86 meters over 18.43 meters and 19.61 meters to 20.11 meters and only needed three years had other reasons than just speed and athleticism.

The author Brigitte Berendonk had been leaked a study after the fall of the Wall, anonymously, it also had something of a crime story.

The study was entitled "Analysis of the use of supportive means in the athletic throwing and pushing disciplines and the attempt to derive and generalize training methodology". It came from 1973, and Karl-Heinz Bauersfeld, Professor of Theory and Methodology of the Athletics at the German University of Physical Culture in Leipzig - and the coach of the shot putter Margitta Gummel.

The "first lady of doping"

The study describes the doping of anabolic steroids in the GDR, Gummel was considered the first test person for anabolic steroids, in the documents she appears under the number 1/68.

When Berendonk made her findings and research public in 1992, Gummel had to give back her seat as a personal member of the National Olympic Committee NOK.

At the same time, she herself had said in 1991 that she was "strictly against doping".

For Berendonk, however, she was "the first lady of doping".

Icon: enlarge

Margitta Gummel and Nadeshda Tschischowa

Photo: via www.imago-images.de / imago images / Karl-Heinz Stana

The enthusiasm for Gummel's successes hadn't diminished in the previous decades; athletics was even more ambiguous in those days than in later times.

There were 17 German women pushers who exceeded the magic 20-meter mark before 1990, 14 from the GDR and three from the West.

A distance that hardly anyone in the DLV made it afterwards.

Ilona Slupianek's German record in women's shot put dates from May 11, 1980. Natalja Lisovskaya’s world record from the USSR is from 1987. What is it still worth today?

The duel between the GDR and the USSR also shaped Gummel's athletic career.

Her eternal competitor was Nadezhda Tschischowa.

Tschischowa was three times before her on the podium at European Championships, three times for Gummel silver.

In 1969, Gummel hit the world record of 20.11 meters, five days later Tschischowa achieved 20.43 meters.

Biggest day in Mexico City

At the 1972 Games in Munich, the Soviet Russian had wrested the gold medal from her.

The gold medal that the Magdeburg native had won four years earlier in Mexico City: This October 20, 1968 was her greatest day.

Tschischowa was already her main rival then, both had improved the world record in the run-up to the games, Gummel had increased the Soviet Russian's record to 18.87 meters.

This rally continued in the Olympic competition.

Gummel's team-mate Marita Lange also got involved, improved her personal best by more than a meter, and while Tschischowa could not gain any more after 18.19 meters in the first round, Gummel rose into a frenzy: 19.07 meters in the third attempt.

World record.

19.61 meters in the fifth round.

World record.

If long jumper Bob Beamon in Mexico jumped into a new century with his 8.90 meters, then Margitta Gummel in Mexico has pushed into a new decade.

Sportswoman of the year 1968 in the GDR, honors from the state, after the Olympic victory, a wine-red Wartburg with the license plate SC 1961 was put in front of her door, Gummel was a real star.

Even if her sports career didn't last long after that, she ended her career in 1972.

Then she became the first Olympic champion in the GDR with a doctorate med.

The test person for anabolic steroids research in Leipzig became a medical doctor.

Icon: The mirror