WORLD SPORTS SCENE / RANDY HARVEY : Dr. Frankenstein Would Have Been Proud of This Scientific Operation

When a group of Western sports journalists was escorted on a rare tour of East Germany’s College for Physical Culture in Leipzig two years ago, they received an offer that many of them no doubt wish they had not taken so lightly.

“There are quite a number of our visitors who think we show them only 50% of the college,” said Dr. Karl-Heinz Bauersfeld, director for scientific development at the college.

“Some people think there is another college underground. You can rest assured you can go to the basement if you want to.”

Had the journalists accepted the invitation, they probably would not have known what they were seeing, or what they were looking for, even if there was a secret laboratory in the basement. More likely, they would have found only restrooms.

But, in light of recent revelations in the German press, it is clear that there was more to the college than Bauersfeld allowed to meet the eyes of Western journalists.

Stern, which recently published details of East Germany’s state-supported drug program based on classified documents purchased by the magazine, reported last week that it had evidence implicating 324 elite East German athletes between 1976 and 1990.

Although the program was supervised by the sports administration in East Berlin, it was developed by scientists at the research institute in Leipzig. They shared their discoveries with select numbers among the 20,000 athletes and coaches who have studied at the college, which became the brain center of the world’s most efficient sports system. Extremely rare was the East German coach who did not pass through Leipzig.

Now, 40 years after it was established, the college is closing. The research institute so far has been spared, but it might be converted into a sports clinic open to the public.

The German state of Saxony’s education minister, Hans Joachim-Meyer, made the announcement last week, blaming the lack of funding since re-unification. But he also admitted that the college was too closely associated with the former communist government in East Germany.

During Meyer’s news conference, held in the Saxony capital of Dresden, hundreds of students and staff members from the college protested. Those already enrolled will be allowed to complete their sports studies at the general-curriculum Leipzig University. But no new students will be admitted.

The college’s campus might become part of Leipzig University. Or it might be sold to developers as the West quickly encroaches upon the East. Already across the street is a used car lot.

After winning a gold medal in figure skating at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada, Brian Boitano could have lived off his reputation. Instead, he has enhanced it.

He combines athleticism, art and even a little politics in his new show, which is scheduled to play at the Forum Dec. 28. This is his second tour with the 1988 Olympic women’s champion, German (formerly East German) Katarina Witt, and they celebrate the new circumstances in her country by skating at one point to “The Wall” by Pink Floyd. They also perform their signature routine from “Carmen.” Time magazine called it a triumph, “an ice show for thinking adults.”

But Boitano, 27, is not entirely satisfied. Although he competes occasionally, recently winning at the World Professional Figure Skating Championships in Landover, Md., for the third consecutive year, he wants to return to the Olympics.

That is not possible for 1992 in Albertville, France. Although the International Skating Union has liberalized its rules regarding professionals, its competitions are not open to skaters who have entered events such as the one in Landover.

Boitano, however, hopes the ISU will reconsider before the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.

“I think they have to open it up for ‘94,” he said recently from his Bay Area home. “After many of the current amateur skaters retire in ‘92, there’s going to be so many good people competing professionally that the ISU will have to deal with us. It’s like tennis in the ‘60s. It had to open up when most of the name players turned professional.”

Why doesn’t he find the shows fulfilling?

“I’m constantly trying to do more in the shows, but it’s still theater,” he said. “I’m an athlete first. I want to compete.”

For the first time since soccer’s World Cup last summer, the U.S. national team will have most of its regulars available when it plays its final game of the year Wednesday in Oporto, Portugal, against Portugal.

Four players who found jobs with European clubs--midfielders Paul Caligiuri of Hansa-Rostock in Germany, John Harkes of Sheffield Wednesday in England, Tab Ramos of Figueras in Spain and goalkeeper Tony Meola, who reportedly is close to signing with Istres in France--have made themselves available for this game.

A fifth player who will re-join the team is midfielder Chris Henderson, who has been otherwise committed while UCLA was on its way to the NCAA championship. Making his national team debut will be a UCLA teammate, defender Mike Lapper.

Of the 11 Americans playing in Europe, Harkes, 23, has had the most success. Only a few days after signing a two-year contract, he scored the first goal last week in a 2-1 upset of Derby that allowed Sheffield Wednesday, a second-division team, to advance to the quarterfinals of the English League Cup.

Notes

Nine U.S. cities have applied to play host to the qualifying draw next December for the 1994 World Cup. A decision will be announced early next year. Thirty-two cities, including Los Angeles and Pasadena, are expected to bid for World Cup games. Eight to 12 will be selected late next year. Philadelphia is considering converting the AstroTurf in Veterans Stadium to grass so that it can become one of the candidates.

Franz Beckenbauer, who coached West Germany to the championship of soccer’s World Cup, believes that he was too hasty in accepting a job as technical director of Olympique Marseille in the French League. “I . . . would not do the same thing if it happened again today,” he said in an interview with the German sports wire service, SID. His biggest problem has been the language, but he said that he also began the job too close to the season. It probably has not helped his disposition that four of his players, including popular striker Jean-Pierre Papin, are being investigated on charges of tax evasion. One offer he rejected was from the U.S. Soccer Federation. He speaks excellent English.

Southern Californians selected as athletes of the year in their sports include Ann French of La Jolla in badminton, Traci Phillips of Newport Beach in canoe/kayak, David Finkel of San Diego in field hockey, Valerie Ann Lafon of San Diego in judo, Pete Sampras of Rancho Palos Verdes in tennis, Craig Buck of Tarzana in volleyball, Douglas Burns Kimbell of Orange in water polo and Lynn Manning of Los Angeles for the U.S. Assn. for blind athletes. . . . The five-member delegation from the International Olympic Committee that will meet with South African sports and political leaders in Johannesburg in April has invited hurdler/bobsledder Edwin Moses of Newport Beach as the athletes’ representative. Some anti-apartheid leaders charge that the IOC is premature in discussing South Africa’s readmission to the Olympic movement.

It took five years for soccer’s international federation (FIFA) to discover that Costa Rica used an overage player in a 1985 youth tournament. The ploy was exposed when the player, Hernan Medford, listed his real age at last summer’s World Cup. Costa Rica was suspended from under-17 and under-20 competitions for two years and from the 1992 Summer Olympics, but it will be allowed to compete for a berth in the 1994 World Cup. . . . Despite resistance from most parts of the world, FIFA is promoting rule changes that will increase scoring. “We have to go for goals,” general secretary Sepp Blatter said last week in announcing the formation of a task force to study rule changes. “Soccer is about getting the ball in the net.”

The IOC has denied reports published last week in Norway that it is investigating the Germans because of recent revelations in the press. Spokeswoman Michelle Verdier said that the IOC is satisfied with the Germans’ plans to investigate themselves. . . . Another Romanian gymnast has re-located in North America. Emilia Eberle, overshadowed by teammate Nadia Comaneci during her career, defected to Hungary last year and recently settled in Grass Valley, Calif., where she will coach junior gymnasts. Eberle won two silver medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Comaneci, who also defected last year, lives in Montreal.