ANALYSIS : East German Sports Machine May Gear Down With Changes

Although West Germany has more than twice as much land and almost three times as many people, it has won fewer than half as many Olympic medals as East Germany since they began competing as separate nations in 1968. The disparity does not have to be explained, particularly not to West Germans. But last year, as East Germany’s political leader, Erich Honecker felt compelled to do so, anyway.

When the East German Olympic team returned from the Summer Olympics in Seoul, where it won more medals than any country other than the Soviet Union, he said, “The miracle of our success is no secret--it’s called socialism.”

But, as of last week, Honecker is out. Socialism, at least as it has been known in East Germany, may soon follow. How much longer will it be before the East German sports machine is similarly dismissed as a relic of an authoritarian regime?

“The whole culture is crumbling, and the sports culture is going to crumble, too,” said Dr. John Hoberman, an associate professor of Germanic studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the co-author of a syndicated column on international sports.

Its passing will be viewed with mixed emotions.

To the credit of East German sports leaders, they created the most efficient system for winning medals in modern history. With a population of fewer than 17 million, roughly the same as Peru and Afghanistan, the East Germans have won more medals than the United States in six of the eight Olympics in which they both competed since 1972.

But because of the veil of secrecy that the East Germans draped over their system, they also created a perception in the West that there is a dark side to their success. There have been suspicions about the technology, the drugs and even the biochemistry that were used to produce such results. The German College of Physical Culture in Leipzig, where coaches, trainers and sportsmedicine experts are trained, has been compared to Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory.

In reality, East Germany has been able to achieve so much with methods not unlike those used by successful sports teams, or companies for that matter, in the West. Recruitment and development.

In the most in-depth look at the East German system, the late journalist Doug Gilbert wrote a book that was titled, “The Miracle Machine.” But there is nothing miraculous about it.

Through physical education classes in elementary schools, the East Germans are able to identify athletes at an early age. Upon entering junior high, or even earlier for some disciplines such as gymnastics and figure skating, gifted children are offered opportunities to attend special sports schools throughout the country.

In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Hoberman said, the offers could not be refused unless parents were prepared to accept the consequences that comes with being at odds with the government. In recent years, he said, parents have had more freedom to refuse, which is one reason the East Germans have had difficulty recruiting athletes in some combat sports, such as boxing.

If parents accept the offers, they, in effect, lose their children to the state. They do not see each other except on weekends. When the children are older and competing on weekends, they may not visit their parents more than once a month. But, in most cases, the parents are willing to make the sacrifice.

They recognize that athletic success is a road by which their children can better their stations in life. With Olympic medals come cars, apartments and foreign travel, which have not been readily available to average East Germans unless they have an abundance of connections or patience. Homesick at first, the children discover their parents’ wisdom as soon as they begin traveling out of the country.

“I grew up in a city in the south part of West Germany,” said Sven Busch, a sports reporter for the German Press Agency who is based in Los Angeles. “All we could see of East German sport was the outcome. We saw the results in track and swimming and we would say, ‘They really have their act together.’

“Later, when I traveled over there on assignment, it was so sad and gray. You could understand the motivation once you saw it. You could see that people would do anything to get out of there.

“Basically, the attraction for athletes was that it was a way to leave the country to compete. They could go someplace and buy things with foreign currency. They had more privileges. Most East Germans order a car at 18 and are lucky to get it at 35. But the best athletes could get a car.”

Now, into this equation, comes reconstruction, which has become known worldwide by its Russian name, perestroika.

It is that which has turned the Soviet Union’s sports system upside down. With economic reform came the order from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that sports in the country must become financially self-supporting. The government, he said, no longer would hold up the bottom line.

Consequently, the basketball, hockey, soccer and boxing federations have made their athletes available to all buyers with hard currency. The federations that do not have as many marketable assets likely will see their medal counts plummet in future Olympics.

Hoberman said that he expects a similar reaction in East Germany as economic reformers begin demanding accountability from all government deparments, including the sports ministry. The East German government admitted that it spent $590 million on sports in 1988, about 0.4% of the national budget. But Karl Heinz-Huba, the publisher of a West German international sports newsletter, reported that East German sources estimate the actual cost at $5.4 billion.

Other reformers might also look carefully at the sports system.

“This would mean unprecedented press scrutiny of the economic and human costs of high-performance sport as well as frank talk about the abuse of performance-enhancing drugs, the exploitation of athletes for profit and athlete revolts against dictatorial coaches and trainers,” Hoberman wrote in his most recent column.

In fact, East German sports officials, perhaps reacting in advance to the anticipated criticism, admitted earlier this year for the first time that there has been drug use among a small percentage of athletes. Last week, they announced plans to release names of athletes who test positive.

But even more threatening to the sports machine would be increased prosperity for average East Germans. If their children someday can have cars and apartments and travel freely without being wards of the state, why send them to the sports schools?

Furthermore, what will be the motivation for the athletes?

“I’m interested in what will happen if the open-door policy continues and their athletes have their eyes opened to a lot of things American athletes’ eyes are opened to,” U.S. swimmer Mary T. Meagher, a three-time Olympian, told the Washington Post.

“They’ve had one-track minds for as long as I’ve competed against them, and they’ve been very successful. But if things keep changing, they might have a hard time keeping their athletes interested in, say, swimming, if there are other opportunities available to them like there are in the United States.”

East German sports leaders will have to begin motivating their athletes in the same manner that U.S. athletes are motivated, through money, pride, money, nationalism and money.

“In a word, the old order in East German sports will soon be gone,” Hoberman said. “From now on, they are likely to act a lot more like us.”