The former track and field star Ludmila Engquist won the most that can be won during the career. She salvaged both Olympic gold, WC gold and SM gold, and was also awarded the achievement gold.
She was at the peak of her career when she was suddenly forced to retire. First, she was treated for cancer while chasing World Cup medals, then a heel injury forced her to end her career in 2000.
Shortly afterwards, on October 26, 2001, she announced that she had deliberately doped herself. This in the middle of the bid for the Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, where she intended to compete in bobsleigh.
This is how Ludmila Engquist lives today – 23 years after the doping scandal
Ludmila Engquist put her track and field career on the shelf in 2000. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TTErica Johansson on Engquist’s bobsled venture: “Difficult to think clearly”
In a two-part documentary series, which premieres on SVT on April 28, Engquist steps into the spotlight again – for the first time in 23 years.
For a while she sits down and talks to the former athletes Maria Akraka and Erica Johansson. She then talks about the investment in bobsled, an idea Engquist believes was her own. She says that when the opportunity to bobsled came up, it kept her busy, allowing her to push away the bad mood she was in after being forced to retire from athletics.
But the fact that it was Ludmila Engquist’s idea to invest in a new sports career shocks Erica Johansson.
– That the whole bobsled venture was her decision, it felt like she had difficulty thinking clearly. Like she lacked a foothold. She talks about how the doctors force her to stop, that the door to a bobsled venture opens and from one day to the next she makes that decision, she says to The Express.
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Former track and field athlete Erica Johansson was shocked that Ludmila Engquist’s investment in bobsleigh was her own. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT
But the new venture took a turn for the worse when Engquist admitted that she had doped herself with anabolic steroids.
The doping was Engquist’s own decision, something that was unnecessary as she was Sweden’s “golden pig” in the meantime, says Johansson.
– She says that this with the doping was her own decision. That she only tested for a few days. Ludmila had the whole of Sweden in her hand and was everyone’s sweetheart. She could have just quit instead of investing in something else. It is so unimaginable. And then Karin (Karin Olssonbob colleague eds.anm.) at a camp and can only pack the bag and go home.
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The producer about Ludmila Engquist: “She took Russian fives”
Another person who is at least as surprised is the producer of the documentary series Olle Palmlöf. He was convinced that the idea came from Engquist’s husband at the time, Johan Engquist.
– I was pretty sure that it was Johan’s idea with the bob. But Ludmila says it was her idea and it really surprised me. She was so damn pressured by this bobsled venture. She doesn’t say it, this is my interpretation, but she took Russian fives. There’s no one who doesn’t spot it, it’s like 70s steroids. It was a desperate way out of the bobsled venture, he says.
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Ludmila Engquist and Karin Olsson bet against the 2002 Olympics when Engquist admitted that she had doped. Photo: Adrian Wyld