Officials to consider giving Olympic medals to innocent victims of doping cheats

Forty years ago Michelle Ford won gold in Moscow. Many others were denied that chance by ‘the most shameful abuse of the Olympic ideal’. Now, she hopes, the whole sorry saga can be put to bed.

Forty years ago, I was among the athletes who spoke the Athletes’ Voice to International Olympic Committee members for the first time in history at the 1981 Olympic Congress in Baden-Baden, Germany. We stated in our final speech that “we consider doping the most shameful abuse of the Olympic ideal”.

Today, the swimming community has hope that FINA, the international body governing the sport, will act and put an end to a saga that has gone on all too long.

It is time to right the wrongs and give those who have been denied their rightful place the recognition they deserve and their place in history.

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Michell Ford with her gold medal from Moscow in 1980. Picture Supplied

I was Australia’s only individual gold medallist at the 1980 Moscow Games, and placed third and fourth in my other events behind the East German (GDR) swimmers.

I was also the only female swimmer from a Western country to claim gold ahead of the German Democratic Republic’s medal machine.

I beat a system that had their athletes doped to deliver sure-fire victories and podium sweeps as poster girls for a political ideology.

It was a dream come true to receive my gold medal, tears running down my face, as Advance Australia Fair played and I watched the national flag being raised, conscious that the moment was being shared by family, friends and all those watching back home.

Alas, many others were denied that chance.

At the 1972 Munich Olympics, the East German female swimmers claimed no gold and held no world records. Yet, they emerged from Montreal in 1976 with 11 golds and a tally of 79 world records set since 1973.

In Moscow, muscular girls with deep voices dominated again – 11 of 13 golds, six podium sweeps, 15 other medals and 10 world records. They never tested positive, so our questions were never answered until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

A police raid at the home of Dr Lothar Kipke, the GDR chief doctor and a member of the FINA Medical Commission, unearthed secret documents revealing the extent of “State Research Plan 14:25”.

Kipke was convicted in a Berlin court in January 2021 of administering steroids to underage girls who had no medical need for substances banned in sport.

Women swimmers during the 1970s and ’80s were denied rightful rewards, not by better athletes but by anabolic steroids and a broken system.

I might have won three golds, not the one in 1980, but unlike others who were denied, I still got to experience the glory of winning.

It saddens me that many are still left feeling robbed after decades. I also feel for those who won medals but who have paid a price with serious health problems. We all carry the scars.

Under a reform at FINA, there’s hope that Kipke will be stripped of his honour for ‘services to swimming’. Reconciliation and healing might then begin.

The FINA reforms are timely and exciting. I hope the IOC will also seize the day to help heal the damage caused by the biggest theft of Olympic prizes in history.

Justice for Aussies cheated out of Olympic medals by dopers

- Julian Linden and Craig Lord

Australian female swimmers cheated out of Olympic glory by East Germany’s notorious sports doping system from the 1970s and 1980s are in line to finally get the medals they deserved.

The new boss of world swimming’s governing body, FINA, says it’s time to right the wrongs of the past.

At least nine swimmers – headlined by Moscow Olympic freestyle gold medallist Michelle Ford and golden girl Lisa Curry – stand to be given retrospective Games medals.

Ford would add two more gold medals – in the 400m freestyle and 200m butterfly – to the gold she won in the 800m freestyle at the 1980 Games.

Lisa Curry is among the Aussie swimmers who could have their Olympic medals upgraded.

The other swimmers in line for an Olympic rewrite are Rosemary Milgate, Lisa Curry, Janelle Elford, Julie McDonald, Nicole Livingstone, Lara Hooiveld, Fiona Allesandri and Karen van Wirdum.

New FINA boss Husain Al-Musallam announced this week the organisation would be restructured after its reform committee found widespread problems with the sport’s leadership and governance models.

SCROLL DOWN TO READ MICHELLE FORD’S EXCLUSIVE COLUMN

The announcement follows a two-year investigation by The Sunday Telegraph into the way the organisation has treated swimmers and run the organisation.

At the top of Al-Musallam’s list is to retrospectively award Olympic medals to swimmers who were robbed because of East Germany’s drug-fuelled political ideology during the Cold War.

Only the International Olympic Committee (IOC) can redistribute medals, but highly-placed insiders have told The Sunday Telegraph the IOC is more open than ever to the possibility.

If FINA is successful it will put pressure on other world sports, especially athletics, to follow suit, which would mean sprint queen Raelene Boyle – famously robbed of two gold medals in the 100m and 200m finals in Munich – would finally get her recognition

Michelle Ford after winning gold in the women’s 800m freestyle. Picture: Tony Duffy/Getty Images

Swimmer Janelle Elford was a star long distance swimmer for Australia in the 90s.

“FINA understands the concerns of athletes who have competed against others subsequently proved to have cheated,” Husain Al-Musallam said, the first time a FINA boss has acknowledged the problem.

“Athletes work their entire lives for a mere chance to compete for a medal, yet alone win one … So when athletes are denied the reward they worked so hard to achieve, FINA must do everything it can to right this wrong.”

Ford, now Ford-Eriksson, would have joined swimming’s elite by winning three individual gold medals at a single Olympics if the 400m freestyle and 200m butterfly were added to her 800m freestyle victory.

“I might have won three golds, not the one in 1980, but unlike others who were denied, I still got to experience the glory of winning. It saddens me that many are still left feeling robbed after decades. I also feel for those who won medals but who have paid a price with serious health problems. We all carry the scars.”

Julie McDonald could be promoted from bronze to silver.

Curry was a teammate of Ford’s in Moscow and finished fifth in the 100m butterfly behind three East Germans so would be promoted to silver if the medals are reallocated.

McDonald should also be awarded silver. She got a bronze in the 800m freestyle in 1988 but was beaten by an East German linked with doping.

Livingstone is owed two bronze medals from 1988, one in relay and another in her individual backstroke race. Milgate, Hooiveld, Allesandri and van Wirdum also deserve bronze medals.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, irrefutable proof of East Germany’s system drug programs was discovered through the opening of secret police files. Those files not only contained all the names of the athletes who were doped but even detailed the exact amounts of performance-enhancing drugs they were given.

Karen van Wirdum.

Nicole Livingstone.

But Olympic sporting officials still did nothing about it, claiming it was all too hard and too late because the statute of limitations had passed.

Two years ago, Boyle challenged IOC president Thomas Bach to do the right thing by disqualifying doped up East Germans. She said at the time: “There are a lot of people out there that really deserve medals they didn’t get … They should all be redressed.

“I do in many ways feel let down by both the IOC and WADA.”

Britain’s Sharron Davies, who was also beaten for gold in Moscow by an East German, told The Times in London: “The IOC and FINA dropped the ball. I’m happy to hear they’re picking it up at last.”