Aussie sprint legend demands: ‘I want my gold medals’
Almost 50 years after being a victim to one of the dirtiest crimes in Olympic history, Raelene Boyle has slammed Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach’s claims it’s too late to right the wrongs of the past.
Other Sports
Don't miss out on the headlines from Other Sports. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Semenya’s defiance: ‘No human can stop me’
Game changer: The Semenya case explained
Almost half a century after being a victim to one of the dirtiest crimes in Olympic history, Aussie sprint legend Raelene Boyle is still waiting for justice.
On Saturday, she let her frustrations out on the most powerful man in world sport, looking International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach right in the eyes and telling him straight, she wants the gold medals she was robbed of at the 1972 Munich Olympics by doped-up East Germans.
“And I’m not just talking about me” Boyle told Bach. “There’s a lot of people out there who really deserve the medals they didn’t get.
“It’s been a long time but in many ways I feel let down by the IOC and WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency).”
Bach, who was in Sydney to attend the Australian Olympic Committee’s annual general meeting, sheepishly explained that it was too late to right the wrongs of the past because the IOC’s statute for limitations in doping cases had passed.
“I’m really sorry but that’s good enough,” Boyle told The Sunday Telegraph.
“The statute of limitations was only created because it’s all just too hard but when the facts are thrown right there in front of you, then it’s never too late.
“If you go to the Olympic museum in Germany, they even have packets of the pills the East Germans were made to take on display, so why is too late.”
Boyle won silver medals in the 100m and 200m sprints at Munich behind Renate Stecher, one of the big winners of the East German regime that doped its athletes to the eyeballs, but has always known she was cheated out of gold.
Even though irrefutable proof of East Germany’s brutal doping system was laid bare when the secret police files were opened after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the IOC has resisted pressure to do the right thing and change the results and give the medals to the rightful winners.
In 1998, the IOC officially declared that the case was closed, even though more than a decade later Germany added injury to insult, by deciding it wasn’t too late to add Stecher to its sporting Hall of Fame.
“Because of politics the East German athletes were forced to take the drugs and the IOC hasn’t really gone back and addressed it and I think they should,” Boyle said.
“Surely as an organisation they have to look at that, and if they don’t, I think they’re effectively saying we don’t care what you do as long as you get away with it for eight years.”
Originally published as Aussie sprint legend demands: ‘I want my gold medals’
Two dead at triathlon world championships
There has been shock and anger after two triathletes died while competing at the sport’s World Championships in Spain.
Super-sonic! Best teenage talent in Australian rugby right now
So who are our future Wallabies? We’ve asked the experts and they’ve come up with a 50 plus list of game changers, speedsters, try sensations to watch out for - and they are all teenagers