The fight against doping was the focus of Gerhard Treutlein’s work. The professor of sports education was confronted with doping back in the 1970s. In the fight against the constantly growing scourge of doping, he was one of the first admonishers in a society that ignored fraud. As the author of the book “Doping in Elite Sport”, Treutlein created a standard work together with Andreas Singler. Many of his companions appreciate that the focus is on people.
“The young athlete should be put in a position to be able to say no to doping in a self-determined and mature manner. That was his concern, which he defended vehemently like no other. With him, an important and in every respect beneficial voice is missing in the System competitive sport,” says doping expert Ralf Meutgens.
Awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 2009
When it comes to prevention, Treutlein works with numerous institutions and associations in Germany and France. In principle, we have only been doing doping prevention in our own sense since around 2001 or 2002. Before that, it was primarily about working on the history of doping in West Germany. You can only shape a better future if you know about the past, because you can analyze the present and plan for the future on that basis,” said the Heidelberg scientist after being awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 2009.
Revealing the doping past at the University of Freiburg
It was not the only award for his work. In 2016 he received the Ethics Prize of the German Olympic Sports Confederation. A year earlier, Treutlein had resigned from the commission for uncovering the doping past in sports medicine at the University of Freiburg. The lack of willingness to investigate made him resigned: “Whoever did what normally has every interest in ensuring that nobody really notices anything. The ranks are closing and sport is a comrade country. And in comrade country you stick together and don’t say anything bad either. Even if you notice that a comrade has made a mess.”
Treutlein’s last book is to be published in May
For a long time, Treutlein had also worked with the doping victims’ help association. In 2019, however, he ended this engagement together with the equally renowned doping experts Werner Franke, Henner Misersky and Claudia Lepping. In the text “Blackbox DOH” they justified this by saying, among other things, that athletes in the GDR had the choice of doping or refusing doping.
Treutlein’s last book is to be published in May. In “Doping for Germany”, the Heidelberger and his Freiburg commission colleagues examine the shortcomings of Breisgau sports medicine.