Böker may be oldest female dope-cheat in history
World masters champion Hella Böker (sometimes Boeker) of Germany, a W65 thrower, has been suspended by the Leichtathletik federation (DLV) after the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide showed up in her urine sample at the European masters championships in Poznan, Poland. Normally, I’d call this evidence of Euros stopping at nothing to root out grannies with medical issues. Folks her age use hydrochlorothiazide to treat fluid retention (edema) tied to congestive heart failure or cirrhosis of the liver. The drug also is used to treat high blood pressure. Goodness knows we never have that! But Hella is no naive Kathy Jager.
Here’s how the DLV site made the announcement Monday:
DLV suspends Hella Böker
“The athlete Hella Böker (W 65 national) of the TUSPO barks is because of the suspicion of a Dopingverstosses on 15 September 2006 by the German Leichtathletik federation (DLV) suspended. The analysis to 27.07.06 during the 15. Taken urine sample of the athlete that resulted in European championships of the seniors in floats (Poland) Presence of Hydrochlorothiazid. Hydrochlorothiazid belongs to the group of the Diuretika and other Maskierungsmittel (WADA list of the forbidden active substances and substances 2006, S 5). The athlete accepted the result of the A-sample and did without the analysis of the B-sample. This communicated Dr. Anne Jakob, chairman of the Disziplinarausschusses, on Monday.”
The Eurovets Web site added:
“The German Athletic Federation (DLV) informed EVAA that the Disciplinary Commission of the DLV has suspended the athlete Hella Boeker (W 65) due to the suspicion of having commited a doping offence. The athlete admitted having taken the forbidden substance Hydrochlorothiazide due to medical indication and waived her right to have opened the B sample.”
In 1963, under her maiden name Hella Ulbricht, she was an East German ranked seventh in the world in the discus in the annual Track & Field News rankings. At San Sebastian worlds in 2005, she was the gold medalist in the weight throw and silver medalist in the discus and shot.
In July, at age 64, she won the weight pentathlon at Poznan and was second in the hammer and discus, third in the weight throw and javelin and fourth in the shot.
As a former world-class athlete, Hella should know the doping rules backward and forward — and applied for a TUE (a therapeutic use exemption). That she didn’t — and didn’t contest her sanction — might lead one to think she knew she was caught red-handed.
I haven’t seen how long her suspension is for. But if she used the diuretic as a masking agent — and not to treat hypertension — she deserves a ban for life.
7 Responses
I do not know Hella Boeker so my comments have nothing to do with her particular situation.. Perhaps she used the drug to treat a medical condition and did not think to check for a TUE. Perhaps she has never had to do so before and it did not cross her mind. Perhaps she took it as a masking agent but at age 65 my money is on a health issue. I am always amazed at how few masters athletes I know with Asthma who have never filed a TUE. They use inhalers, I see them take a puff from an inhaler. I have asked several if they get a TUE before international compeition and the answer is almost always NO.
So most of the time I feel like an idiot for taking the time and effort to get my allergist/asthma specialist to fill out the forms for me when I send them in almost every year for my TUE. This is expensive if you do not have good health insurance, and in one case the individual told me she has no insurance and no asthma specialist, she gets the medication from her local doctor. If she were ever tested she would make an even older outed druggie than Frau Boeker.
I am sure there are many many masters athletes who compete in Europe or other international venues who never bother to get exemptions for their medications. If the Euro Vets get really heavy handed, we will see alot more older athletes banned for using prescribed medications with out clearnance. And if WMA decides to test more widely – many more athletes will get caught. It is partly a case of not knowing what the drug policy is really about and partly not thinking that the blood pressure medication, the asthma inhaler, and the other stuff that so many of us take to stay healthy could possibly be forbidden without an exemption. And it might be lack of good health insurance – lack of internet access – one needs to go online to download the forms, and lack of awareness – not everyone is paying attention to this.
I am not naive – I know that dopping happens “even” among masters athletes, but in the net being swept by the masters drug tsars, there will be those who are just following doctors orders and their doctors not only do not know about the TUE – they probably do not have a clue that the patient is a competitive athlete.
My personal physican thinks that I just”jog” around a little, she has no clue and I have no interest in spending part of the 45 seconds that she spends with me explaining that I am doing just a little more than going for a nice jog around the block. My asthma/allergist specialist has taken the time to learn about the TUE – and he has had olympic athletes as patients. My needs are not new to him as they might be to most physicans.
I take that drug every day as part of my blood pressure medication. I have never even thought of it as a performance enhancing drug. I’ll download the TUE forms and see if my doctor will fill them out. Looking at my results for the past year, it must not have helped any.
Wayne
If a sixty-something year old athlete is stupid enough to take drugs for performance-enhancing reasons, I say let them go ahead.
Medals and trophies aren’t the point of masters competition. I don’t care if I am beaten out of the medals because somebody else is using drugs. I don’t think they should bother to test athletes over 50 except when they break a world record. Use that time and money to enhance the sport in other ways, and let the drug cheaters suffer the consequences they deserve. At 50 and older it’s not as if the cheaters are taking away somebody else’s ability to make a living in the sport.
I disagree with Doug’s posting of Sept. 20. We should be careful about drugs and their side effects at any age – a well-conditioned athlete of 50 can hope to live a long and active and even competitive life, and to take performance enhancing drugs with all the possibly devastating side effects is to roll the dice on one’s future health, not to mention cheating on your fellow competitors. I have taken a diuretic daily for the last 3 years as part of the treatment for an inner ear condition and imbalance disorder known as Meniere’s Disease, and have several times sought and received TUE’s from WMA and IAAF. I then have the TUE approval letter with me at competitions, should I be tested. With the doctor’s letter and other forms, it is an easy procedure, but one should apply at least a few months before the meet in question. All the forms and info are on the
IAAF and USATF websites.
Frank Handelman, M61
If I loose in the competition, I would like to know whether the person who was better than me is taking performance enhancing drugs, because I am not. I probably cannot compete with somebody who is taking steroids and growth hormones as some master athletes do. As far as I am concerned people who are taking drugs for any reason should be allowed to compete, but there should be an asterix next to the name so we can compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges.
And if you are caught taking something, be a man and admit it. Dont give us that shit about not knowing that your steroid was banned or that you only followed doctors orders. that just makes you look stupid.
I think we should make a policy for Maters Track & Field that says anyone who has been banned for drugs as an open athlete or Masters Athlete cannot hold a Masters record. Several of our top athletes who competed open like Regina are about 40 and I believe she is on the last year of her ban–we need to protect the integrity of our Masters records. Mark Cleary
Dear Ken Stone
Per chance I found your article about Hella Böker from 2006. I think you would change your view if you had read the complete arguments for Hellas suspension.
I’ll send you parts of it you never saw. I apologize for doing it in German but I am sure that you as a good sportsman, you will get ie anyway
Auszüge aus dem Beschluss des Disziplinarausschusses des DLV vom 1. 11. 2006
2) Die Athletin hat einen Dopingverstoß nach §§ 3, 4 Nr. 1; Nr. 1.1; Nr. 1.2 ADC in Verbindung mit den IAAF-Procedural Guidelines for Doping Control, Anhang 1 (>Prohibited List
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