Richard Panek

About the author: Richard Panek writes for the periodical Women's Sports & Fitness.

The issue of drugs in sports has special poignancy for members of the U.S. women's swim team who competed in the 1976 Summer Olympics. Heavily favored to win, they were instead badly beaten by the East Germans, and many swimmers were castigated for losing and for voicing suspicions of drug use among the victors. But developments after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 have revealed the extent to which the country of East Germany during the 1970s and 1980s engaged in a systematic program of drugging athletes with the intent of winning medals at the Olympic Games. Efforts to gain appropriate official recognition for the American swimmers have been rebuffed. Widespread suspicions of drug use persist among...