A SPORTS MACHINE : East Germans Credit Success to Application of Knowledge

During a recent tour by sports journalists through East Germany’s so-called miracle machine, the hosts protested so often that they have no secrets that one couldn’t help but wonder what they were hiding.

The journalists’ skepticism was no more noticeable than, say, the wall that runs between East and West Berlin, but the East Germans seemed not at all offended by it. On the contrary, they were amused.

One of those who had fun at the journalists’ expense was Dr. Karl-Heinz Bauersfeld, director for scientific development at the legendary German College for Physical Culture (DHfK) in Leipzig. It’s a graduate school for coaches, and DHfK professors are recognized as the brains behind East Germany’s brawn.

“The majority of our visitors are extremely surprised,” he said after the journalists returned from a look at DHfK sports facilities that would not impress athletes at Cal State L.A., much less UCLA. “There are quite a number of them who think we show them only 50% of the college. Some people think there is another college underground.

“You can rest assured that you can go to the basement if you want to.”

Those who accepted the invitation found only restrooms. They should have known after the earlier stages of the five-day, four-city tour that the East Germans weren’t going to reveal advancements they may have made through drugs, blood doping, robotics, genetic recombination, cloning or any other areas of experimentation rumored to be going on in their laboratories.

Scoffing at such speculation, the East Germans insisted that they don’t have any more knowledge than their competitors. But, they allowed, they are more successful at applying their knowledge. They do that through a sports system that is unparalleled in identifying talent at a young age and developing it to a world-class level.

Wilfred Jaeger, chairman of the Tractor Sports Club in Schwerin, noted that East Germany is a country of 42,000 square miles, roughly the size of Ohio, with a population of 16.5 million, or 7 million fewer than California. Thus, he said, the system must be efficient for the country to compete internationally.

“We have to take advantage of our talents,” he said.

That doesn’t come cheaply. Volker Ranke, vice president of the East German Sports and Gymnastics Union (DTSB) in East Berlin, said the government has an annual sports budget of $660 million, about 1% of the national budget. But West German sports officials, who study their counterparts closely, estimate that the East German government spends closer to 10% of the national budget on sports.

The financial commitment to sports has created dissension, although muffled, among some East Germans, particularly workers who are aware that 8% of their monthly taxes go toward the sports budget. One official, who didn’t want to be identified, said he believes the money should go toward rectifying the nation’s most pressing problem, a housing shortage, or making consumer items that are taken for granted in the West, such as automobiles, more readily available.

Even the majority of those who have cars drive East German-made Trabants, which have so little power that speed traps on the Autobahn net primarily foreigners.

“Many of our people look at West Germany,” the official said. “The shops are more full. Their cars are better. Our Trabant, that is not a car.”

But no one can argue that East Germany doesn’t get what it pays for: international recognition. In a country that had to develop its own identity after being separated from its western half at the end of World War II, that motivation cannot be underestimated.

From 1956 through 1964, East and West German athletes competed in the Olympics as part of a combined German team. But since 1968, when the East Germans began competing in the medal standings as a separate nation, they have moved into fourth place in the Winter Games and eighth place in the Summer Games.

Only the Soviet Union and the United States have won more medals in the last 20 years. In the 1976 Summer Games, East Germany won four more gold medals than the United States. And few would be stunned if the East Germans win more gold medals than the United States this year in Seoul, although such an occurrence is not anticipated.

“We want to maintain a good standard,” Ranke said. “There is a certain pride that our population feels in our athletes. An Olympic champion is a better example for our young people than someone who is wasting his time.”

THE SYSTEM

One of East Germany’s gold-medal favorites, Jurgen Schult, was competing in a 10-kilometer bicycle race in his hometown of Neuhaus when a Tractor Sports Club talent scout, not unlike a major league baseball scout in the United States, spotted him. Schult won the race, but the scout wasn’t impressed with him as a cyclist.

“I was noticed for my strength,” said Schult, who was 14 at the time. “I almost killed the bicycle.”

The scout went to Schult’s parents with a recruiting pitch. Some parents have to be convinced that it’s best for their child to attend one of the country’s 32 sports schools. That is particularly true if the school is not in the city where the family lives and the child will not be able to stay at home.

In that case, a child usually is assigned to a school in his district. Still, it’s possible for him or her to go home only on weekends.

But Schult’s parents, like many, were honored that their son was selected. Of 200,000 children who start school each year, only 1 in 100 eventually will be invited to a sports school. Most young athletes enter the schools when they are 13, but some, such as figure skaters and gymnasts, start when they are 8.

Considering the standard of living in East Germany, which is above average for an Eastern Bloc country but not in comparison to West Germany and other Western European countries, it’s easy to understand the eagerness of Schult’s parents to send him to a sports school. Elite athletes live better than most East Germans do, having access to international travel, cars and apartments.

Schult started the ninth grade in Schwerin, 36 miles from his home. When he wasn’t in class at the Hermann Matern Children and Youth Sports School, which is connected to the Tractor Sports Club, he was undergoing physical and psychological tests so that coaches and doctors could determine which sport he was best suited for.

The Tractor Sports Club is a typical elite sports club, serving 372 athletes from the ages of 13 to 32. It doesn’t have state-of-the-art facilities, but it compensates with manpower. It has 40 full-time coaches, 6 doctors, 10 physiotherapists, 5 medical assistants and 4 nurses.

The club specializes in track and field, volleyball, boxing and yachting. If the tests had indicated that Schult should be in another sport, he would have been sent to a different school, perhaps one farther from home. Although he preferred to play soccer--10 of the sports schools specialize in soccer--the staff decided that he should be a thrower.

Then it was a matter of determining what he should throw. For two years, he was trained in the shotput, javelin and discus. At 16, he was told that he was a discus thrower.

Dr. Bernd Heine, the chief medical officer at the Tractor Sports Club, said the system is not as arbitrary as it might seem. “We can only give advice to the athlete that it might be good to try this or that discipline,” he said. “I want to make this point clear. We do not tell an athlete to do this or do that.”

Added Jaeger, the club’s director: “Placing athletes in disciplines against their will does not work. The athlete has to have the will.”

Nevertheless, the officials often are correct.

In 1986, 10 years after Schult was designated a discus thrower, he broke the world record. Last year, he became the world champion. This year, at 28, he is expected to become the Olympic champion.

Schult’s parents were wise. Compared to most East Germans, his life is good. When he finished 10th grade, he chose to spend the next two years training to become a mechanic. Later, he was accepted for correspondence courses at the prestigious DHfK in Leipzig and plans to become a coach. He, his bookkeeper wife and their 6-year-old son live in an apartment outside Schwerin.

“We enjoy certain advantages as athletes,” he said. “There are somewhat long lines for cars. If we have good performances, this time is shortened for us. It is also somewhat quicker for us to get apartments than the man in the street.”

But Schult is far from rich. For instance, he drives a Trabant. He said that he earns $1,000 a month in salary, plus $14 a day for expenses when he travels, and he is not allowed to keep any of the money that he wins in Grand Prix meets. Those earnings go to the DTSB.

“That’s justified,” he said. “I didn’t have to pay anything for my years of training.”

MARX, ENGELS AND KATARINA

As almost any 14-year-old would, Angela Biere giggled when she suddenly was surrounded by reporters, interrupting her science experiment. It was apparent to everyone, except perhaps Angela, why they gravitated toward her instead of her classmates. Looking more East Valley than East German, she was the one with a few strands of her blond hair dyed purple.

Biere said that she is from a small town about 45 miles from Schwerin, that she has been attending the Hermann Matern Children and Youth Sports School for two years and that she is not homesick. She added an exclamation point to the end of that, explaining that her father is a forest ranger and her mother a gardener and neither appreciates her disco music. She said she enjoys dancing and writing short stories.

She is enrolled in this school because she can run. Already, she has been timed in 12.5 seconds in the 100 meters. She said her goal is to become an elite sprinter like her idols, Heike Drechsler and Marita Koch, East Germans who share the world record in the 200 meters.

Biere is one of 303 students in the school, two-thirds of whom are boys. Their curriculum, starting in eighth grade, is virtually the same as that found in U.S. junior high and high schools, with one notable exception. The East German students are required to study two foreign languages, Russian and English.

“Our students have to be good at sports,” said Hermann Matern’s director, Wolfgang Rehmer, noting that there are similar specialized schools in the country for music, art, mathematics, natural sciences and languages. “At the same time, they have to be rather good in their normal schooling.”

If past records are an indication, about 99% of the students will complete 10th grade. After that, they may choose to continue through the 12th grade--which will take three years because so much of their time is dominated by athletics--or enroll in vocational training. Those who pick academics may attend college after completing 12th grade.

Andy Jalless, 17, was the only boxer in his class who decided to continue his studies after 10th grade. As a result, he was alone in his mathematics class when the reporters noticed him. Lonesome Andy, they called him, the man in a class by himself.

He didn’t understand, but he smiled anyway. “It’s a little difficult, but it’s a chance to do more intensive study,” he said. “Sometimes the teacher looks in on me.”

The students’ days in Schwerin are demanding. They train in the morning at the Tractor Sports Club, attend classes in the afternoon at Hermann Matern and then return to the sports club for more training in the early evening.

Those whose parents live in Schwerin go home at night, but most live in dormitories. Although there is no tuition, room and board depends on the ability to pay. No one is charged more than $66 a month.

A tour of the boys’ dormitory was revealing only for those who believe that East German teen-agers are different from teen-agers anywhere else. A few of the boys had Nelson Mandela posters on their walls, but a few others were more inspired by pictures of Katarina Witt, the East German figure skater. Some filled their bookshelves with the teachings of Marx and Engels, but others overloaded theirs with heavy-metal albums.

Not only is Western culture not discouraged, it is displayed on the big screen. Among the movies that students could see in the auditorium that week were “E.T.” and “Beverly Hills Cop.”

It isn’t unusual in the United States for parents whose children excel in sports such as gymnastics, figure skating, swimming and diving to send them far from home for advanced training, but the practice often is criticized for depriving the athletes of a normal adolescence. In East Germany, officials believe it is to the child’s advantage to leave home in his or her early teens for schooling.

“It’s good for developing the personality of the child,” Rehmer said. “When you compare our students with students at normal schools, our students are ahead because they have to lead self-reliant lives. Even if they never make it to the top class in athletics, their own personal development is improved.”

SEARCH FOR SECRETS

Unlike the posters of Katarina Witt on the walls of the boys’ dormitory at the Hermann Matern school, there is no sex appeal to the portrait of the two-time Olympic figure skating champion in the main hallway at the DHfK in Leipzig.

Unsmiling, she is wearing a plain brown uniform. Her hair is tied back in a bun, and she is wearing no makeup. It is a picture of the Katarina Witt who was created by the socialist system, not the Katarina Witt who was marketed for Western consumption.

At the end of the hallway is a sign that reads, “For Peace and Socialism, Let’s All Go In for Sport.”

Access to sport is such an important element of East German philosophy that it is guaranteed in the nation’s constitution. According to statistics released by DTSB officials, 3.6 million people are involved in sports at the nation’s 18,000 clubs for non-elite athletes.

Anyone can participate for a monthly fee roughly equivalent to the fare for a bus ticket. About 73,000 of the members are under 6. Those who prove particularly talented eventually will be invited to sports schools. Witt was discovered at her local figure skating rink when she was 6.

The DHfK is the top rung of the sports ladder, a college founded in 1950 to produce coaches and researchers who can ensure that East German athletes, elite and otherwise, are receiving the latest in training techniques.

With more than a quarter of a million certified coaches, East Germany would no more consider sending an unqualified coach into one of its clubs than the United States would consider sending an unqualified scientist into a NASA laboratory.

There are 2,000 East German students enrolled at DHfK, all of whom will be required to return every two years after graduating for refresher courses, and about 100 foreign students, most of them from Third World nations. Instead of paying tuition, students are paid as much as $570 a month.

The DHfK also is the center for research. Of the 60 doctors associated with the college’s sports-medicine program, half are involved in projects to maximize the human body’s potential.

“Some people say that athletes have come close to the limit of the human body,” said Bauersfeld, director of research development. “This is not the position we teach at the college. Experts in space from the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have proven that human beings only use their bodies up to 40%. So we think we are still far away from the limit of the human capability.”

During a tour of the laboratory, the reporters were curious about whether the researchers experiment with performance-enhancing drugs.

“According to the regulations, any influence of a chemical in the body is doping,” said Dr. Dagmar Meissner-Pothig, an internal medicine specialist. “Why should you do research if something cannot be used?”

Pressed on whether it is possible that anyone from within the system, whether or not sanctioned by the DTSB, provides East German athletes with drugs or information concerning their use, she said, “Absolutely not.”

In track and swimming, two sports in which East Germans most often are suspected of doping, only one athlete, a woman shotputter, has been reported to have failed a drug test, and that was more than a decade ago.

But because of competitive factors, political as well as athletic, suspicions continue to flourish in the West about East German methods. The latest speculation, fueled by the Western European press, is that East German athletes become pregnant to stimulate hormone production, then have abortions.

“Many people are looking for secrets,” said Dr. Bernd Barth, a DHfK professor. “They are looking for human manipulation of the body. I believe they are frustrated because they cannot achieve the same results that we achieve with very simple conditions here.”

The East Germans’ theories about their success are less sensational.

“If we have been able to do well,” said Jaeger, chairman of the Tractor Sports Club, “it is because we have experienced coaches, good scientists and very motivated athletes.”