Ilona Slupianek

Slupianek is a figure I find impossible to read simply. As East Germany's dominant shot putter she won 1980 Olympic gold in Moscow and broke the world record twice that same year, raw physical supremacy at 180 cm of force. Yet the year-long doping suspension sits inseparably beside those marks. Knowing what we now know about the GDR's state-organized doping system, I am reluctant to lay the full weight on the athlete alone; she was a product of a machine larger than herself. Her career embodies the uneasy entanglement of record and shadow, and I hold a complicated, qualified admiration for it.

Name (English)

Ilona Slupianek

Name (Japanese)

イローナ・スルピアネク

Reading

いろーな・するぴあねく

Born

September 24, 1956 (age 69)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Monkey

Origin

Demmin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany

Height

180 cm

Occupation

politician / athletics competitor

Awards & achievements

• Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A4%E3%83%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8A%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AB%E3%83%94%E3%82%A2%E3%83%8D%E3%82%AF

Tags

• Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
• politician
• athletics competitor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.