SPORTS AND SOCIETY 529
the bar unrealistically high; her “doping-tainted” record from 1984 still
stands as the world record time even today.^146 In calling for the removal
of their times from the records, both athletes eff ectively questioned the
fundamental principle of “higher, faster, further,” as well as the primary
emphasis that had been put on winning medals, not only in the East,
but also in the old West. Not surprisingly, the association reacted rather
unenthusiastically to their requests. In the end, the names of the two
athletes were replaced with a star, but the record times remained unchal-
lenged on the books. This handling stemmed from the fact that Geipel’s
and Tettenborn’s relay colleagues had not chosen to distance themselves
from the record time that the team had achieved together.
The Transformation of Recreational SportsThe dire situation of popular sports in the GDR fi rst became the subject of
public debate after the collapse of the SED regime. A DTSB conference in
Kleinmachnow that was held on 7 November 1989, for example, devolved
into a back and forth among the functionaries who were worried about
the future of competitive sports in the country.^147 The question of who was
responsible for the miserable state of the East German sports facilities
arose for the fi rst time.^148 In light of the apparent resentment of much of
the population against the enormous cost of the competitive sports sys-
tem, DTSB vice president Thomas Köhler stated that ordinary “people”
would now have to “be let in and allowed to take part in sports activities”
at the centers that had been reserved for top athletes.^149 Accordingly,
training centers that were once closed off in many places opened their
doors to the general population for the fi rst time at the end of 1989. Yet
the disappearance of countless factory sports facilities, which were dis-
mantled for fi nancial reasons after 1989, and the miserable state of the
buildings that forced many sports centers to shut down (such as the cen-
tral stadium in Leipzig or the Friesen pool in Berlin) only further exacer-
bated the unsatisfactory situation in the eyes of East Germans. Thanks to
the investment support law that took eff ect in 1992 and the Golden Plan
East for the Construction of Sports Facilities that was put into place in
1998—which was modeled in name and concept after the West German
Golden Plan of the 1960s—a number of new sports centers and facilities
were built in the new federal states. Nevertheless, according to the Ger-
man sports facility census that was released on 1 July 2000, 57.8 percent
(1993: 82.5 percent) of the indoor pools and 63 percent (1993: 91.4 per-
cent) of the outdoor pools were still in need of renovation.^150
In addition to the state of sports facilities, sports participation in the
new federal states has been a major point of ongoing discussion. Given