In 1977, East German sprinter and 400m runner Marita Koch-Meier (nee Koch) started her ascent towards an athletic immortality, of sorts. That year, Koch broke her first indoor world record. In 1978, she set a world mark in the outdoor 400m, stopping the clock in 49.19 seconds.

In Moscow in 1980, Koch wore Olympic gold after the same event. Between 1978 and 1982, she lowered the 400m world record half a dozen times. And in October 1985, at Canberra’s Bruce Stadium (as it was then known), Koch raced at an athletics World Cup event.

That day, she ran 47.60 seconds in the 400m, breaking the world record for the seventh and final time. The time still stands unchallenged. In the intervening 39 years, no woman has completed a single lap of an athletics track faster than Koch did in the northern outskirts of Canberra.

Four decades is an inordinate period for a world record to remain untouched. Advancements in sports science and athletic excellence makes it a near certainty someone will break it. Yet Koch is not a unicorn. Florence Griffith-Joyner’s world records in the 100m and 200m track events have remained on World Athletics’ books since 1988.

The American arrived at the Seoul Olympics in 1988 so physically transformed and ripped from just months before that Ben Johnson – of all people – baulked at her appearance. Yet Flo-Jo never failed a doping control test throughout her athletics career. Nor did Koch.

For 40 years, Koch has absolutely denied she’s just another manifestation of the East German doping machine. She is steadfast, even when confronted with the release of comprehensive Stasi secret police records, apparently chronicling the intricacies of how East Germany systemically doped Koch.

Credit: Simon Letch

Which leaves you to ask whether there’s a truth at the core of this? Or could it be that the Olympic record books of the 1970s and ’80s are basically just a work of fiction?

The International Olympic Committee’s initial anti-doping provisions were introduced in the late 1960s, although it wasn’t until the 1976 Games in Montreal that athletes’ samples were screened – sometimes, at least – for steroids.