No remorse and no apology to date: Thomas Springstein was convicted of doping a minor in 2006.
Photo: dpa/Jens Wolf
Things were very quiet around Thomas Springstein for a long time, more precisely since 2006 – after he was sentenced to 16 months in prison on probation for doping an underage athlete. He is back as the founder of the Ostsee Sprint and Running Team Rostock club. There the 65-year-old trains three young athletes who were extremely successful at the North German Indoor Championships last weekend.
Springstein is a sports kid from the East. The fact that he was allowed to work as a trainer again and again despite evidence of multiple doping casts an equally dubious light on the sports system in the West. He was taught the GDR training apprenticeship in his hometown at the DHfK, and after graduating as a qualified sports teacher, he became a coach at SC Neubrandenburg in 1984. According to a police statement from hurdle sprinter Frauke Tuttas, he is said to have doped her and other athletes with anabolic steroids starting in 1985. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, his work had the first consequences: World champion Katrin Krabbe and European champion Grit Breuer were banned in 1992 for doping with the calf fattening agent Clenbuterol, Springstein was not – a simple resignation from the club in Neubrandenburg was enough for that.
Recently wrote the German Athletics Association: “Since the DLV does not work with Thomas Springstein, the question of Springstein’s role model function does not arise for us.” The DLV never took responsibility in this case in the hope of international success – even though growth hormones and anabolic steroids were found at Springstein, for example The testosterone he administers can lead, among other things, to liver damage, masculinization or suppression of ovarian functions.
There were several opportunities for the DLV and German sport to take action against Springstein. For example, in 2006: Before his conviction in Magdeburg, the trainer had sworn before the Hamburg district court that he had never passed on doping substances. But no real consequences were drawn at any time. The association cites formalities because it does not pay the coach. Likewise the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Sports Association, which sees Springstein’s return as a private matter because it does not finance him. Officials love to hang medals from the athletes he trains around their necks.
There was never a word of apology or remorse from Springstein. He expressed his idea of sport bluntly in 2002 after he was named “Trainer of the Year”: “There is no world championship for humane athletics.” Springstein became the self-proclaimed “perfect coach” as a self-employed personal trainer. At some point he married his former top athlete Grit Breuer, and their 15-year-old daughter Paula Springstein came third in the 200 meters at the North German U20 championships at the weekend. She is one of the three young track and field athletes that Thomas Springstein trains in his new club.
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