Medal record
Competitor for  East Germany
Women’s Swimming
Olympic Games
Gold	1980 Moscow	100m Backstroke
Gold	1980 Moscow	200m Backstroke
Gold	1980 Moscow	4x100m Medley

Rica Reinisch (born April 6, 1965 in Seifhennersdorf, Saxony) is a retired swimmer from East Germany. She is 5'9" tall and weighs 132 lbs., and is a specialist in backstroke, setting four world records in the Moscow Games (three in 100 m backstroke: 1'1"51, 1'1"50 and 1'0"86; one in 200 m backstroke 2'11"77), at the age of fifteen. She won gold medals in the 100 m and 200 m backstroke and as a member of the 4 x 100 medley relay team.

Olympic successes are prepared during a long time, and Rica's was not the exception: she had debuted at eight years old and her conditions and qualities placed her in the Dresden Sports School; at 12 years old she had already swum the 100 m backstroke in 1'14"3. Two years later, at 14, she was ranked as the twentieth female swimmer in the world in the 100 m backstroke with 1'4"84.

In January of 1980, she realised that she had certain advantages to become an Olympic champion. In the great Invitation Meeting in Austin (Texas), a kind of "world female championship", she was barely beaten by the American world champion Linda Jezek (1'3"74 against 1'3"15). After that she trained with teenaged enthusiasm. One month later she went in 1'2"46, , a time better than the every active swimmers, less than one second away from the old world record held by her countrywoman Ulrike Richter. In 200 m backstroke she went under 2'20" at 2'15"59. The "records route" was opened for Rica. The hardest was, maybe, winning the national championships where she suffered one defeat by Petra Riedel. But she improved in time for the Games. Shortly before she had swum the 100 m backstroke in 1'1"77.

East German Doping

Reinisch, like many of the East German athletes of the time, was doped by their coaches, under instruction from the Stasi. Swimmers were doped with oral-Turinabol, an anabolic steroid derived from testosterone.^[1] After suffering severe period pain and enlarged ovaries, her mother forced her to retire at the age sixteen, just post the Moscow Olympics.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reintegration of East Germany, records confirmed the doping scandal. By this time, Reinisch had married and already had two miscarriages. Like most of the East German athletes, Reinisch was resultantly paid compensation in the resulting court case. Reinisch now has two children, and was later quoted as saying: "The worst thing is they took away from me the opportunity to ever know if I could have won the gold medals without the steroids. That's the greatest betrayal of all."^[2].

References

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