Birte Weigang

Birte Weigang
Birte Weigang at the GDR Swimming Championships in Erfurt (1987)
Personal information
Surname:	Birte Weigang
Nation:	German Democratic Republic
Swimming style (s) :	Back, butterfly
Birthday:	January 31, 1968
Place of birth:	Leipzig
Size:	1.76 m
Medal table

Birte Weigang at the GDR swimming championships in 1983.

Birte Weigang at the 39th GDR Swimming Championships in Potsdam, July 22, 1988

Birte Weigang (born January 31, 1968 in Leipzig ) is a former German swimmer who competed for the GDR . Weigang is a victim of state-prescribed doping in GDR competitive sports .

Career

The daughter of former GDR Footballer of the Year Horst Weigang started her career for SC Turbine Erfurt and initially continued the tradition of backswimmers that Roland Matthes established through his successes.

She celebrated her first big success in 1985 when she became European champion over 100 meters back in Sofia . In addition, she was able to secure the European title in the 4 × 100 meter medley together with Sylvia Gerasch , Kornelia Greßler and Heike Friedrich and the silver medal in the 100 meter butterfly.

Later she concentrated on the butterfly position and won her only world championship medal in 1986 at the world championships over 200 meters butterfly with the bronze medal.

A year later at the European Swimming Championships in Strasbourg in 1987 , she was again European champion with the 4 × 100 meter medley relay and vice European champion over 100 and 200 meters butterfly.

With the GDR's 4 × 100 meter layer relay, she became Olympic champion at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul and won two silver medals over 100 meters and 200 meters butterfly.

She ended her swimming career in 1989 due to a diagnosed herniated disc and then became a teacher in Berlin .

Birte Weigang was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver in 1986 and in gold in 1988.

GDR doping

Weigang confirmed the unwitting ingestion of doping drugs by GDR sports officials and doctors. After her swimming career, she was confronted with massive health problems as a result of the GDR's systematic doping program over many years . The use of anabolic steroids such as Oral-Turinabol , for example, caused the development of muscles that were too strong for her skeleton, which led to multiple vertebral fractures and was ultimately the real reason for her career ending.

Weigang's former training colleagues Cornelia Sirch and Torsten Karl , who died of a brain tumor in 2003, are also among those affected by doping.

Weigang summarizes the systematic doping practices of the GDR as follows:

"I wasn't asked if I want my body to age ten years in one year of training."

Web links

Commons : Birte Weigang  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Birte Weigang in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Birte Weigang in the Swimrankings.net database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Markus Völker: Shadows in the biography. In: Berliner Zeitung . April 1, 2003, accessed July 10, 2015 . 
2. ↑ Neues Deutschland , October 15, 1986, p. 7
3. ↑ Neues Deutschland, 12./13. November 1988, p. 4
4. ↑ "Ex-swimmer Torsten Karl died" ( Memento of the original from December 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. online at sportgericht.de , April 28, 2008; As of May 7, 2009 .