Report lifts lid on West Germany's doping past
Report says athletes were taking many types of drugs as far back as the 1970s and even earlier
A report by German researchers claims West Germany's athletes were systematically doped with government backing from the 1970s, and possibly earlier.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper published details from an 800-page report titled Doping in Germany from 1950 to today, revealing the extent to which West German politicians were allegedly willing to promote drug use among athletes to ensure international success.
According to the report, one interior minister said at the time: "Our athletes should have the same conditions and services as the Eastern bloc athletes."
The report was put together by researchers at Berlin's Humboldt University on behalf of the German Olympic Sports Confederation, with Giselher Spitzer as the project leader.
It was completed in April, but has yet to be published because of far-reaching privacy concerns and quite complex legal issues over naming athletes, doctors and politicians.
The report claims that for years the state financed experiments with performance-enhancing substances such as anabolic steroids, testosterone, oestrogen or the blood-doping agent EPO. It did not state when the experiments ended.