Marita Koch

Medal record Women's athletics Olympic GamesGold 1980 Moscow 400 mSilver 1980 Moscow 4x400 m relay World ChampionshipsGold 1983 Helsinki200 m Gold 1983 Helsinki4x100 m relay Gold 1983 Helsinki4x400 m relay Silver 1983 Helsinki100 m

Marita Koch (born 18 February 1957 in Wismar, East Germany) is a former sprint athlete.

Career

Her married name is Marita Koch Meier. During her career she collected a remarkable sixteen world records in outdoor sprints, as well as 14 world records in indoor events.

Koch set her first world record in 1977 in Milan when she ran 400 metres indoors in 51.8 seconds. The following year, she set her first outdoor record at 400 metres in 49.19 seconds. She topped this with another two world records within a month.

Koch was unable to compete at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal due to injury, but had been considered a certainty for a medal had she made it there.

In 1979 Koch became the first woman to run 200 metres in under 22 seconds. Her time of 21.71 seconds set at Karl Marx Stadt stood as world record for nine years. Three weeks before the 1984 Olympic Games she tied her own record but the East German boycott prevented her from competing in the games. The Moscow Olympics of 1980 was her only one, and she won the gold medal in the individual 400 metres and silver medal in the 4 x 400m relay.

Koch set the current 400 metre world record of 47.60 seconds, a time considered far out of reach of even the best present athletes, on 6 October 1985 at Bruce Stadium in Canberra, Australia.

Marlies Göhr challenged Marita Koch in indoor sprints. As a result, Marita Koch became one of the most successful runners over 50 and 60 metres where she set many records between 1980 and 1985.

As a member of East Germany's relay teams, Koch set more world records. With a team led together with Göhr, they set new world records over 4x100 metres in 1979 and 1983. In the 1980 Olympic Games, Koch was part of the team that won silver over 4x400 metres. The same team set world records over the same distance in 1980, 1982 and 1984.

Koch also won the European Championships at 400m in 1978, 1982 and 1986 before retiring in 1987 as one of Germany's most successful athletes. She remains the European record holder over 200 metres.

Drug Use Controversy

Koch's achievements, along with the extraordinary performances many other East German female athletes, aroused considerable suspicion at the time that they were achieved with the aid of anabolic steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs, which were and remain illegal but were not detectable at the time. In 1991 German anti drug activists Brigitte Berendonk and Werner Franke were able to save several doctoral theses and other documents written by scientists working for the East German drug research program. The documents list the dosage and timetables for the administration of anabolic steroids to many athletes of the former GDR, one of them being Marita Koch. According to the sources Koch did use the anabolic steroid Oral-Turinabol from 1981-1984 with dosages ranging from 530 to 1460 mg/year. Koch never publicly admitted to this. After the fall of the Iron Curtain the GDR never came close the dominating the sport again.