The sprinter Ludmila Engquist was one of Sweden’s biggest sports stars in the late 1990s. He went on to pursue Olympic gold from the Winter Games, until his career ended in a doping scandal.
Ludmila Engquist was born in the Tambov region of the Soviet Union in 1964. He won the 1991 World Athletics gold in Tokyo in the 100-meter hurdles.
In 1995, the star athlete married a Swedish businessman by Johan Engquist with and received Swedish citizenship.
Engquist, who survived breast cancer in 1999, returned to the race tracks until he switched to sledding. She wanted to be the first woman to win Olympic gold in the summer and winter games.
However, the 2002 Winter Olympics remained a dream when Engquist was accused of doping.
In Sweden, Engquist went from sports heroine to outcast, especially given her past.
She had already been accused of doping in 1993 as a representative of the Soviet Union, but the ban was overturned when Engquist explained that her then-husband had administered anabolic steroids without her knowledge.
After his last trip, Engquist did not want to return to Sweden. The police also investigated Engquist for smuggling doping substances. In the summer of 2001, he had transported methandrostenolone, which is an anabolic steroid, from Russia to Sweden.
Engquist fled the commotion to Benidorm, Spain, where he attempted suicide.
Engquist has lived in Spain ever since. He returned to the public in the spring of 2024, when the Swedish public radio company SVT made a documentary about him.
Engquist, who divorced her husband Johan, said she lives in Spain because of her children.
– The two of them are the only ones I have in this world.
Engquist’s biography Ludmila – Svenskare kan inge vara will be published on September 13.
– I could escape the horrors of the icy track, I could get an eternal ban from all sports, and I wouldn’t have to suffer anymore, he says according to SVT.
So Engquist has always denied doping during his track and field career, but admitted that he used it when he switched to luge.
Now he claims that he used doping in order to get caught and not have to continue sledding.
– I hated tobogganing. It was a total nightmare.
– I never thought to say it as it was. That I wanted to quit because I was terrified and depressed. Canceling was impossible, the stakes were too high.
According to Engquist, a lot of work had been done for him and sponsors had been collected. Besides, the change of profession had been his own idea.
When the doping testers arrived, it was a release, according to Engquist.
– There was nothing to hide, I wanted to be caught. Stop the madness. Get rid of fear.