Jarmila Kratochvílová

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Medal record
Women's Athletics
Olympic Games
Silver	1980 Moscow	400m
World Championships
Gold	1983 Helsinki	400m
Gold	1983 Helsinki	800m
Silver	1983 Helsinki	4x400m
European Championships
Silver	1982 Athens	400m
Silver	1982 Athens	4x400m
European Indoor Championships
Gold	1981 Grenoble	400m
Gold	1982 Milan	400m
Gold	1983 Budapest	400m

Jarmila Kratochvílová (help·info) (born 26 January 1951 in Golčův Jeníkov) is a former late-developing Czech 400 m runner whose career was dogged by injury and illness. Always in the shadow of Marita Koch she hit peak form in 1983 aged 32. Entering a one-off 800 m in Munich reportedly as a training exercise, she broke the world record with 1:53.28. This convinced her to attempt an unlikely double in the inaugural World Championships 10 days later. Despite a seemingly impossible schedule, she won the 800 m easily and set a world record 47.99 to win the 400 m. Koch, having missed training through injury ran (and won) the 200 m. Though Koch beat her 400 m time in 1985, her 800 m record remains as one of the longest standing in Track and Field.

[edit] Rumours of doping

Her unfeminine appearance has led to her performances being questioned. Drug rumours persist, though in her case no evidence has ever come to light, not surprising given that random drug testing was introduced many years after she set her records in the early 1980s. Several factors suggest doping on her part, even if unknowingly as was the case with many East German athletes. These factors include the fact that the times she set in the 400 and 800 metre events only 10 days apart in 1983 were only bettered in one instance in more than 2 decades since and on that occasion - the 400 m in 1985 - also by an athlete that was almost certainly part of the systemic East German doping system, Marita Koch. To this days these two records stand as the two oldest records in track and field athletics.

On August 16, 2006, Reuters reported the finding of secret documents which show doctors administered banned substances, such as nandrolone, norandrosterone and stanozolol, through the 1980s to Czechoslovakian athletes in a wide variety of sports including track and field athletics.

[edit] References

Preceded by Marita Koch

United Press International Athlete of the Year 1983

Succeeded by Martina Navratilova