Dörte Thümmler

East German gymnast Dörte Thümmler won the team bronze medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. She finished seventh in the individual all-around and qualified for the floor exercise (eighth) and the uneven bars finals (fourth). In 1987, Thümmler won the bronze medal on the uneven bars at the European Championships and, at the World Championships that year, she won the uneven bars gold medal and was the team bronze medallist. Domestically, Thümmler won three national titles.

Thümmler’s mother was a youth coach in the National Gymnastics Association of the former GDR, while her stepfather, Manfred Thümmler, was Head of Sports Medicine at SC Dynamo Berlin and from 1974 a member of the so-called “Working Group for Supporting Aids”. In 1999 he was charged with aiding and abetting bodily harm in the Berlin doping trial, but the proceedings were dropped.

Dörte Thümmler became a recognized doping victim. She trained in restaurant management but had to retire at the early age of 38 years due to physical and mental problems as a result of her being given doping substances as part of the systematic state doping in the former GDR.