Former athletes who say they were harmed by East Germany's doping programme
vowed on Thursday to take their case to court following a failed attempt to
agree compensation.
Representatives of 160 former GDR athletes and victims of the regime's doping
procedures met drugs firm Jenapharm and Germany's National Olympic Committee
(NOC) at an arbitration court in Hamburg to discuss the possibility of
compensation.
But the talks with the firm which produced the steroid at the heart of the
doping cases and the NOC, which inherited some of the funds held by the GDR's
top sporting body, collapsed.
Michael Lehner, the lawyer representing the athletes, said he was
disapointed. "The consequence is that we have to go to court," Lehner told
Reuters. "We want to draw a line under the case but we didn't achieve that."
In the GDR, Jenapharm used to be part of the state-run pharmaceuticals
combine and was the producer of the steroid Oral-Turinabol, at the time a
legally-approved drug.
The steroid is widely recognised as forming the basis of the GDR's state-run
doping programme.
Lehner said they had aimed for 20,000 euros ($24,600) compensation for each
of the athletes, some of whom had been given the drugs when they were minors.
"The victims suffer from heart deformities, voice changes and extreme hair
growth - and these are the lesser effects," said Lehner. "Others have cancer or
experienced genetic mutations in their children."
Lehner said the victims' would initiate court procedures in the next six
months as otherwise their right to bring the cases would expire.
DOPING PEAK
Jenapharm's managing director Isabel Rothe said she welcomed the court case
and hoped it would clarify the situation.