POLSIS’s Dr Jonathan Grix appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed this week to discuss his new book Sport under Communism: Behind the East German ‘Miracle’, co-authored by Mike Dennis from the University of Wolverhampton.
Jonathan discussed the factors that helped propel East Germany into the top-three in the Olympic medals table for over two decades. He argues that aside from its notorious doping programmes, the GDR developed an integrated system for identifying and nurturing elite sporting talent that was forty years ahead of its time. Could the GDR offer lessons for Team GB? The programme is available here.