Hardloopnieuws

German records will stand

Door Tom Knight

National records set during the dark years of the state-run doping programme in the former East Germany will be allowed to stand.After several months of investigating the validity of records set during the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, the German Athletics Federation (DLV) said yesterday that it was impossible to rewrite history.

Geipel
There have been calls for the drug-fuelled records to be erased since the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the full extent of the East German regime was uncovered.In October, the DLV agreed to examine the validity of all national marks after Ines Geipel, a sprinter for the former East Germany, asked to have her name removed from the record books. Geipel, a victim of the state-run doping programme in which athletes were often given drugs and told they were vitamins, was one of four athletes to set the German womens 4 x100 metres relay record in 1984. Meanwhile, Frances Ronald Pognon underlined his prospects of winning the European 100m title in Gothenburg in August with victory in Martinique, where he ran 10.19sec to beat Bernard Williams, of the US.

© Telegraph