Anyone following track and field and/or anyone who has read this blog this week is aware of the gender suspicion drama surrounding 800m 2009 World Champion Caster Semenya.
Obviously her appearance contributes greatly to the speculation, but the South African team’s head coach does also; Ekkar Arbeit. Arbeit is the former East German coach who has been described as “as a mastermind of the largest pharmacological programmes in history”.
One of Arbeit’s most notorious cases is Heidi/Andrea Krieger, who accused Arbeit of giving her so many drugs that she was forced to have sex-change operation and adopting a male identity as Andreas Krieger.
Heidi as a female left, as Andreas on the right
Krieger competed as a woman in the East German athletics team in the shot putt. She retired in 1990, and in 1997 upon realizing that the steroids had left her with all the traits of a man except an actual penis, Krieger underwent sex reassignment surgery and changed her name to Andreas.