Doping Top Secret- The Podcast
with Kerstin Hermes & Hajo Seppelt
SEASON 1
Episode 1: The Case of Jan Ullrich
ARD doping expert Hajo Seppelt and Kerstin Hermes look back at the doping case of Jan Ullrich. How did the rise and fall of the only German Tour de France winner to date come about? Who is this man and why has he not come clean to this day? What role did his career and the doping structures at the time play in professional cycling?
Episode 2: Operation Aderlass Part I
As part of a film project, banned cross-country skier Johannes Dürr opens up about blood doping in front of Hajos Seppelt's camera. But the more the whistleblower tells, the clearer it becomes: That's not the whole story.
Episode 3: Operation Aderlass Part II
The ARD film "The Greed for Gold" with the statements of cross-country skier Johannes Dürr is causing quite a stir. Suddenly, Hajo Seppelt and his team find themselves in a raid at the Nordic World Ski Championships. Only now does it become clear: With their research, Seppelt and his team have tracked down a Europe-wide doping network around the Erfurt doctor Mark S.
Episode 4: The Ben Johnson Case
For ARD doping expert Hajo Seppelt, the doping case of Canadian Ben Johnson is the "big bang in the fight against doping". The muscular sprinter humiliated his competitor Carl Lewis in the 100 metres at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. But then the work of a doping laboratory in Cologne became his undoing.
Episode 5: Russia's Fraud Part I
It all begins with an email from two whistleblowers from Moscow and ends with Hajo Seppelt becoming an enemy of the Russian state. In an unprecedented investigation, he and his team uncover a system of doping fraud and cover-up in Russia.
Episode 6: Russia's Fraud Part II
The ARD film "Doping Top Secret - How Russia Makes Its Winners" caused an earthquake in the world of sport. Russian whistleblowers feared for their lives and had to go into hiding abroad. With this research, Hajo Seppelt and his team are changing world sport to this day.
Episode 7: The Baumann Case
Positive! Of all people, the clean man of German sport has been convicted of doping. Is Olympic champion Dieter Baumann a hypocritical fraudster or was he being treated badly? Kerstin Hermes and ARD doping expert Hajo Seppelt take another look at the bizarre case of long-distance runner Baumann from today's perspective.
SEASON 2
Episode 1: The Pechstein Case: Suspicion
Late in the evening of February 7, 2009, Claudia Pechstein is standing in a Norwegian hotel room in her nightgown and flip-flops. Shocked. She has just found out that there is something wrong with her blood values. The Berlin speed skater has no idea that her life will change at that moment: she will be banned for doping just a few months later. RadioEins presenter Kerstin Hermes and ARD doping expert Hajo Seppelt get to the bottom of the exciting Claudia Pechstein case.
Episode 2: The Pechstein Case: Verdict
Now it's out: The most successful German winter Olympian in sports history is a doping offender: Claudia Pechstein! But there were big doubts from the start, because what doesn't exist is a positive doping test. Kerstin Hermes and Hajo Seppelt explain the Pechstein case in a way that is easy to understand. What exactly is she accused of? How valid are the charges? Why is this case so important for the anti-doping fight? And they tell how the fighter Pechstein counterattacked.
Episode 3: The Pechstein Case: Objection
Claudia Pechstein has been banned for doping without a positive test and is in danger of missing the 2010 Olympic Games. Time is running out. Doping experts and doctors all over the world are now looking into her case. The battle for the truth is coming to a head.
Episode 4: The Pechstein Case: "Win or Die"
Olympic champion Claudia Pechstein is on the ground. Her doping ban remains in place and she will miss the 2010 Olympic Games. But Pechstein wouldn't be Pechstein if she gave up now. She continues to fight and remains true to her motto: "Win or die!"
Episode 5: The Pechstein Case: Justice
Finally, the tide seems to be turning. Claudia Pechstein has achieved an important legal victory and German sport has restored her honor. In Beijing, at her eighth Olympic Games, she even carries the German flag into the stadium at the opening ceremony. And yet the Pechstein case is far from over.
Episode 5: The Pechstein Case: Justice
Finally, the tide seems to be turning. Claudia Pechstein has achieved an important legal victory and German sport has restored her honor. In Beijing, at her eighth Olympic Games, she even carries the German flag into the stadium at the opening ceremony. And yet the Pechstein case is far from over.
SEASON 3
Episode 1: Doping in the Federal Republic of Germany: Death at 26
April 1987: A young woman collapses in severe pain during training before the World Athletics Championships. It is Birgit Dressel, the heptathlete, a West German medal hope for the World Championships in Rome and for the 1988 Olympic Games. A whole team of doctors tries to help, but after a brutal two-day struggle, Dressel dies. What happened? Did your sports doctor have something to do with her untimely death?
Episode 2: Doping in Germany: Medicine for Medals
After the shocking death of Birgit Dressel, there is great sadness. But the tragedy has not yet been fully solved. Her doctor, Armin Klümper, was soon acquitted on all levels: legally and morally. But it was already clear to those in the know at the time: top-level sport in the Federal Republic of Germany has long been involved in the international doping arms race. And this competition claims victims. What role does the chief doctor of the German Olympic team, Professor Joseph Keul, play in this?
Episode 3: Doping in the Federal Republic of Germany: Dangerous Demigods
"Higher, faster, further at any price!" That seems to be the motto in sport in the Federal Republic of Germany. Tank chocolate, which already took away the fear of soldiers during the war, is now supposed to help athletes overcome their natural limitations. Anabolic steroids masculinize young women and thus make them stronger. Intestines pumped full of air are supposed to ensure that swimmers have a better position in the water. Sport in the Federal Republic seems to be losing all sense of proportion. Performance is becoming the leitmotif - even that of sports medicine. But the demigods in white suddenly have to answer unpleasant questions.
Episode 4: Doping in the Federal Republic of Germany: Twilight of the Gods
1990: The Wall is gone. Former sporting class enemies become friends. GDR coaches with doping stigmas continue their careers, former GDR athletes win medals for the reunified Germany. They continue to dope together, albeit more cautiously.
SEASON 4
Doping in Soccer (1/5) - The doctors you trust
Brasil, England, Italy, Spain and also Germany: Players of the big soccer nations are responsible for doping cases that lead to headlines in connection with the most popular sport in the world. One is even allowed to participate the WC, doped. Doubtful doctors are playing a role too, even through doping in soccer supposedly doesn´t do an good at all ...
▶️ Listen now here on ARD-Sounds (German).
Doping in Soccer (2/5) - The Case Juventus Turin Part I
Behind this case lies what is arguably the biggest scandal in European soccer history. In the late 1990s, a prosecutor took on a national icon: Italy’s record-holding champion, the “Old Lady,” Juventus Turin. A whole host of world-class stars found themselves in the crosshairs of Raffaele Guariniello’s investigation. Were they doping? And why are there virtually no doping cases in Italian professional soccer?
▶️ Listen now here on ARD-Sounds (German).
Doping in Soccer (3/5) - The Case Juventus Turin Part II
A “blacklist” of suspected players, more than 40,000 pages of incriminating evidence, the “mother of all doping battles” in court—in 2004, the Juventus Turin case turned into a legal thriller that shook the soccer world far beyond Italy’s borders. Is there even EPO doping in soccer?
Doping in Soccer (4/5) - Doping in German Soccer Part 1
Discussions about doping have long been a part of German soccer—and they don’t spare even the legends: The “Heroes of Bern” are just as affected as the 1966 World Cup runners-up, led by star players Uwe Seeler and Franz Beckenbauer. Widespread use of stimulants is well known, yet the DFB long resisted doping tests in the Bundesliga.
Doping in soccer (5/5) - Doping in German Soccer Part II
If you speak out, you’re out: DFB national team goalkeeper Toni Schumacher, in particular, has learned firsthand what happens to doping whistleblowers in German soccer. But even since Schumacher was ousted, doping remains an issue in German professional soccer—more often than many fans and those who profit from the sport would like.
SPECIAL EPISODES
In the slipstream - Special Episode
After numerous doping scandals in a dark past, cycling has been purifying itself for years. In fact, there was not a single positive doping test at the world's biggest cycling race, the Tour de France, between 2015 and 2025. However, ARD doping expert Hajo Seppelt and his team are now investigating evidence that casts doubt on clean cycling. In the end, it becomes clear: the suspicion of doping continues.
Dirty Games - Special Episode
Doping cases at the Olympic Games are quite rare. But with his latest research, ARD doping expert Hajo Seppelt proves that the Olympic Games are and always have been a festival of doping fraud. This time, Seppelt reports directly from Paris with ARD Olympic reporter Kerstin Hermes.
The China Files - Special Episode
In this episode, ARD doping expert Hajo Seppelt presents an investigation that resembles a criminal case. 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for the heart medication trimetazidine, which is banned in sport, before the 2021 Olympic Games and nobody found out about it.
Jan Ullrich - the Interview
Germany's best-known doping journalist interviews Germany's most famous doper. Hajo Seppelt himself did not expect that it would happen again. The first episode of the Geheimsache doping podcast was "The Jan Ullrich case". Seppelt was not able to speak to Ullrich for this episode. Ever since a confrontation on Reinhold Beckmann's TV show many years ago, he had been something of an enemy to Ullrich. In an unexpected twist, there is now a detailed exclusive interview with the fallen Tour de France winner, who has decided to talk about his sporting and personal fate.
(Interview from November 2011)