Kerstin Kielgaß

Kerstin Kielgaß was an active high-performance long-distance freestyle swimmer for 15 years, winning her first international title for the former GDR at the 1985 European Championships with the 4×100 freestyle relay squad. All her other podiums were earned with the reunified German team. At European Championships she won one gold, three silver, and two bronze medals and at the Worlds won two gold, two silver, and one bronze medal.

Kielgaß participated in three Summer Olympics from 1992-2000. She won three relay medals with bronze in the 4x100 freestyle at Barcelona, silver in the 4x200 free when it was held for the first time at Atlanta, and another bronze at Sydney. Individually, she added a 200 metres free bronze in 1992. Kielgaß also finished an unfortunate fourth three times in individual events.

After the Sydney Games, Kielgaß retired and then became a physiotherapist for the Bundesliga volleyball club SV Bayer Wuppertal, where her best friend Simone Osygus was club manager. She also took care of the men’s national team. She was awarded the Silver Bay Leaf, Germany’s highest sports award, in 1993.

As part of the GDR doping investigations into the practices of the East German doctors and sports officials, it became known, among other things, that Kielgaß’s coach, Volker Frischke, had regularly given his pupils anabolic steroids.