In 2001, Stephan Vuckovic, the Olympic medalist and eventual Ironman Florida winner, lay in a hospital bed with liver and kidney failure. Vuckovic had fallen seriously ill in the Czech town of Carlsbad, the site of the European Triathlon Championship, the day before the race. He was rushed to the nearest German hospital, in Bayreuth, Germany, 100 kilometers away.

So writes the old and formidable German daily broadsheet, Sueddeutsche Zeitung. For three days Vuckovic fought for his life in the intensive care unit. As baffled doctors sought the cause of Vuckovic’ cascading organ shutdown, the German athlete confessed to taking EPO.

So claimed Dr. Martin Engelhardt, the honorary president of the German Triathlon Union (DTU) in a memorandum referred to in Germany as Gedächtnisprotokoll. This is the narrative offered by the Zeitung along with a second German daily, the Reutlinger General Anzeiger.

In November of 2008, report both newspapers, Dr. Engelhardt emailed to the DTU a memorandum accusing Vuckovic of having admitted to using EPO in while in his hospital bed in Bayreuth. The cause of his illness was later determined, by the University of Tuebingen, to be Legionnaires Disease.

The Sueddeutsche also reported that Engelhardt accused those running the DTU during Vuckovic’ illness of knowledge of the confession, and that these federation heads covered the story up. One of those leaders named by Engelhardt is the DTU’s then-president Dr. Klaus Mueller-Ott.

Why did Dr. Engelhardt come forward in 2008, years after the fact? Vuckovic was on the verge of entering sports politics himself, seeking the top post of the triathlon federation of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg (BWTV). Vuckovic found out about Dr. Engelhardt’s memo to the DTU when he returned from the 2008 Ironman World Championship. He received a call from Susanne Mortier, president of the BWTV. Mortier advised Vuckovic to withdraw from the long agreed plan to take over the presidency from Mortier.

Vuckovic called the accusation "libel of the worst kind," when contacted by Slowtwitch several weeks ago. Nevertheless, Vuckovic withdrew his candidacy for the regional political position. His attorney, Dr. Michael Lehner, extracted a recantation from Engelhardt, under the threat of litigation. The story then seemed to die.

But the German anti-doping agency (NADA) was unwilling to leave it there, according to reporting by the Reutlinger General Anzeiger. It wrote that the DTU had been contacted by NADA and was asked to pursue this case further. Ulrike Spitz from NADA confirmed this to Slowtwitch and stated, "NADA is required to follow each suspicious situation and has to ensure that doping allegations of all sorts will be cleared up. We have thus asked the relevant federation, the German Triathlon Union (DTU) to start a case, after allegations became public."

Vuckovic, in weeks past talkative about the allegations, more recently stated he would only communicate through his attorney. Vuckovic did recently post a statement about the case on his website, saying that recent untrue public statements made him finally speak out again. "From the beginning I have communicated willingness to get the necessary paperwork to NADA, DTU and DOSB, paperwork that would contradict the content of [Engelhardt’s accusatory] email. Three doctors have independently confirmed that I indeed suffered from Legionnaires Disease in the summer of 2001 and all medical data will confirm that."

Vuckovic also posted a letter his attorney had sent to Claudia Wisser, the current president of the German Triathlon Union (DTU). In this letter, the attorney points to the doctor statements and an injunction against Dr. Engelhardt and closed with the note: "I consider this situation from a sports legal point closed, and am thus asking the DTU with emphasis to close the case immediately." In the letter Lehner (Vuckovic’ attorney) accused Wisser, who also is an attorney, to have prejudged Vuckovic and having made comments that the documents and findings can’t get rid of the suspicion of EPO doping.

The DTU though does not appear intimidated and is continuing with the case. In an email to Slowtwitch, Claudia Wisser made the following statement: "Regarding the case itself I currently only can and want to say that we are pursuing all kinds of directions and we will announce findings once we are done with our investigation."

The question that still lingers is not so much what disease Vuckovic actually had during the summer of 2001, but what exactly did Vuckovic say or admit to when he was fighting for his life, not knowing at the time what was actually wrong. Slowtwitch asked Stephan Vuckovic that exact question, but Vuckovic said "I will no longer make statements regarding this matter."

Sources:
- Reutlinger General Anzeiger
- Sueddeutsche Zeitung
- Sueddeutsche Zeitung
- Stephan Vuckovic website