My Journey to Winning Olympic Gold and Defeating the East German Doping Program
August 29, 2016
In light of the recent Russian doping scandal, Babashoff, a former Olympic medalâwinning swimmer, reveals in her timely memoir how the East German government turned their female swimmers into elite athletes with an experimental drug program. Her narrative deftly recounts her humble California beginnings, with her strict parents pushing her to triumph in a series of amateur meets and Olympic trials. Babashoff, assisted by veteran writer Epting, covers some painful terrain about her father molesting her for years, a crime he was eventually arrested for after similarly assaulting several neighborhood girls. Once the acclaimed swimmer gets on the big Olympic stage in 1972 and 1976, she witnesses the horror of the Munich massacre, the glory of gold medalâwinner Mark Spitz, and the evolution of the muscular East German female swimmers, who were groomed in the lab to smash world records. "It's like swimming against aliens," Babashoff tells skeptical reporters, who doubt that the women's new Charles Atlas bodies are the result of doping. Unforgettable and brave, Babashoff's whistle-blowing memoir poses a host of disturbing questions about Olympic regulations, performance-enhancing drugs, anti-doping agencies, media arrogance, winning cleanly, and life after competition.