The Mystery Of The UNBREAKABLE World Record

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Is it real?

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[Stierlitz]

You solved the mystery at 0:18 already: "Competing for East Germany during the 1980's".
They were all juiced out of their minds.

[thinkcivil]

East Germany was putting out women athletes who looked more muscular than a lot of the men in this era. Doping has long been an issue, but East Germany took it to another level back during this time. Their state run programs encouraged runners to use PEDs and they had a very successful masking program that was just as complicated as the doping itself.

[jgray]

"It became clear that she was onto something special"

Yeah, that's the controversy.

[tjs]

Koch was dosing on Oral Turinabol (aka CDMT) from 1981 to 1984. Berendonk & Franke saved documents written by the East German drug research programme and she listed by name in those documents listing her dosing from 530 to 1460 mg per year under State Plan Topic 14.25. She can say she didn't take it, but she would be hard pressed to not admit that she received 'vitamins' under her training program. The thing about CDMT is it is designed as a tablet.

[mansellindustries]

I have never had to stop watching one of your videos before but I had to this time after three minutes… East German original documents that became available after the fall of the iron curtain show Koch used the anabolic steroid Oral-Turinabol from 1981 to 1984 with dosages ranging from 530 to 1460 mg/year… this is where you should start, and if you think these documents are correct, this is where you end…

[forestgump]

Koch actually looked natural. Kratochvilova otoh looked like and NFL LB.

[tagomago]

Out of the top 10 fastest 400m times ever she holds 5! The soviet woman in 2nd in this race also ran the 9th fastest time ever in this same race. Only 3 of the top 10 times ever were ran outside the 1980's. All Eastern block countries were taking performance enhancing drugs at the time as well as some U.S. athletes. Every womens world record from the 100m to the 800m (not including hurdle races) was set in the 80's.

[jollymolly]

I remember seeing Koch and Kratochvilova run in the '80s. The entire Soviet bloc (Russian, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc.) was hopped up on steroids and "blood packing." It wasn't even that much of a secret. it was all sports, not just track & field. There were no tests that could detect all of the different steroids then so their federations just dared people to prove it. Occasionally someone would get caught in the urine testing, but not enough of them. Of course Koch is going to deny she was doping. That's like Kratochvilova saying she was just "a big country farm girl" and came by her muscle mass naturally. It was the stance of the Soviet Union that if they couldn't win the cold war - they'd prove their superiority with athletics. You know...since that worked out so well for Hitler in 1936..

[saintsoo]

Marita Koch never failed a drug test. Marlies Gohr never failed a drug test. Both were either World Champion, Olympic Champion or both, as well as holding multiple world records from the mid 1970s to mid 1980s.
This record has stood the test of time. What is clear is Koch's physical appearance never changed from scrawny and thin too pumped up and muscular as did many suspected drug cheats of the 80's era. Jarmila Kratochvilova on the other hand looked the exact opposite and was very muscular and still holds the 800m W.R, yet could not defeat Koch's 400m WR.
I say this often, that the idea drug abuse was going on in the Eastern Bloc and not in the UK and US was almost laughable. The standards and abilities of producing and testing and avoiding capture of drugs you would imagine were far superior in the western nations.
Therefore my opinion is any negative test of a Marita Koch or Kratochvilova is as valid and trustworthy as a test of Carl Lewis or Jackie Joyner.
Differences in the doping of athletes are the main issue. Those ion the west had the choice, those in East Germany and the like had none.

[roboi]

If Koch hadn't broken it then we'd still be talking about the 47.99 of Kratochvilova as the Czech was an embodiment of the caricature image of a soviet era athlete, she was built like Ben Johnson.

[DMT-ixzj]

Anyone who lived through the late 70's and into the 80's watching T&F then seeing so many Athlete's banned for substance abuse knows what records were juiced results it was obvious.

[sillarho]

This doping happened not only in east germany at this time. see Florence Griffith-Joyner, Ben Johnson, And I claim almost all sprinters in this decade were mainly doped.

[ab]

Maybe she was accelerating at the end. Secretariat, who won the triple crown in 1973 was actually running faster the last quarter mile of the Kentucky Derby than the first quarter.

[lesnuitssanskimwilde]

The reason the record still stands out is because at that time it was still quite easy to use massive doses of steroids without getting caught. Contrary to what many people may think there's no modern drug that comes close for building strength and explosive power (or muscle mass).

[mausilugner]

Never forget that you can't turn a donkey into a racehorse, not even with doping. Marita Koch was an outstanding sprinter even without steroids. With them, she became superhuman.

[markbateman]

It is no surprise that the record has lasted. Firstly, we have to accept that the coaches in the GDR used every chemical aid their state funded sports science industry could come up with. That is an indisputable fact.
However, in addition those same coaches came up with ways of training in the sprint events - 60m to 400m. Read Charlie Francis' book "Speed Trap" which is mainly about his relationship with Ben Johnson. In this book Francis is very open about the huge amount of knowledge he absorbed from the GDR coaches. Their methods were very different from those used by most sprint coaches in the western world.

[ZarpSterr]

Living in the Soviet bloc, during those times, their athletes would be under orders to take whatever PED, prescribed by the State Doctors....it was POLICY.
Their athletes were propaganda objects of the State and were treated like machines.
Any refusal of these tenets, would result in banishment of the athlete and his/her family.
....and we all know the word Gulag and Stasi, don't we.

[hardstepbillion]

The era of the greatest injustice to track and field. How could anyone with a conscience still refer to this as a world record when the truth is always staring us in the face

[rajivmurkejee]

Her time was as legitimate as Flo Jo's times.

[SohoBringt]

It's also not controversial or speculative. It is a historically known fact that nobody, absolutely nobody in GDR athletics had a say in whether or not they wanted it. They had regular "vitamine shots", which they weren't allowed to ask about what it was. Those who did or wanted to refuse these shots faced the everything a dictatorship can do to make its citicens comply.