3 x 25 minutes

from Tuesday, 04 June in the ARD mediathek

Friday, 07 June at 11.00 p.m. on ARD
Saturday, 08 June at 0.15 a.m. on ARD
Saturday, 08 June at 0.40 a.m. on ARD

April 1987: A 26-year-old world-class sportswoman dies in Mainz University Hospital of multi-organ failure - pumped full of dozens of substances from doping and painkillers. The deceased is Birgit Dressel from Bremen, at the time the great hope of German athletics in the heptathlon.

Why did the athlete have to die? And what consequences did this tragedy have for German sport?

In the three-part ARD documentary series ‘Death for the Olympics - The Birgit Dressel Case’, author Yannick Lowin talks to those closest to Dressel, reopens the case with experts and sketches the picture of a merciless sports system in which the death of a young woman has no consequences. Luise Großmann plays the athlete in fictional scenes (written and directed by Nils Loof).

‘Tod für Olympia - Der Fall Birgit Dressel’ is a Dokness production commissioned by Radio Bremen (editor Jan-Dirk Bruns) and SWR (editor Christoph Pietsch) for ARD 2024 - available in the ARD Mediathek.

(Press text - Dokness)