Suspended German Swimmer a USC Recruit

Sven Hackmann, who was suspended Tuesday by the German Swimmers Union (DSV) because of a positive anabolic steroid test, is a USC recruit who allegedly received a steroid injection in Burbank last December.

Hackmann, 21, of Hamburg was visiting his girlfriend, Bernice Nusbaum, a model from the San Fernando Valley. While playing racquetball, Hackmann says, he aggravated his chronically injured elbow and received treatment, an injection.

It is not clear, however, who gave him an injection. Hackmann has referred to the practitioner as a medical student and as a physiotherapist.

Hackmann said he asked the practitioner if the drugs in the injection were on the list of banned substances and was told they were not.

At a subsequent training camp, Dec. 16-Jan. 8 at the University of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, Hackmann was one of 37 German national team members tested for drugs.

Both of his urine samples tested positive for a steroid.

His six-month suspension will prevent Hackmann from competing in the German Olympic trials, May 28-30 in Munich. Consequently, he will miss the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, this summer.

Gerhard Simon, the German national swim team doctor who has known Hackmann for several years, said he does not believe that Hackmann knowingly received performance-enhancing drugs.

“I believe he is an intelligent boy, and I think if he wanted to manipulate his performance he would have taken tablets because it was clear that there would be doping probes,” said Simon, noting that a tablet dosage is easier to conceal than that from an injection.

Simon also said that there had been only one injection.

“There were all the characteristics of a decreasing level of (the steroid in question in subsequent tests), so you can be sure it was only one injection,” Simon said.

Hackmann has made recruiting visits to USC and California and is attempting to get a qualifying score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. USC Coach Peter Daland and Cal Coach Nort Thornton, who are at the NCAA championships in Indianapolis, could not be reached for comment.