Sabine Busch

Sabine Busch won three World Championships, winning the 400 metre hurdles and in the 4×400 relay in 1987, also having won a title in the long relay in 1983. She took part in the 1991 World Championships, but failed to make the final. She won the World Cup in both events in 1985, and won another two golds and one silver at the 1982 and the 1986 European Championships. Additionally she won gold in the 400 m at the 1987 World Indoors and won the 1985-86 European Indoor title in the open 400. Busch also earned 11 national titles in the former GDR. She set a world record for the 400 hurdles in Berlin in September 1985, running 53.55, and in 1982 she ran on a world record setting 4×400 relay team at the European Championships in Athens. Although she would have been heavily favored, the Soviet-led boycott prevented her from running at the 1984 Olympics. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics she finished fourth in the 400 hurdles and won the bronze medal with the 4x400 metres relay.

Busch later was employed by the Ministry for Socials and Health of Thuringia at Erfurt. After German reunification and the release of the autobiography Zwei Seiten der Medaille (Two Faces of the Medal) by former GDR sports administrator Thomas Köhler she criticized him and his downplaying the doping practices in the former East Germany. She indirectly confirmed exhaustive doping in her former country, and also did not exclude that she had taken some performance enhancing drugs. She also confirmed that she has been spied on by six internal employees of the State Security (Stasi).

Personal Bests: 400 – 49.24 (1984); 400H – 53.24 (1987).