If players trained poorly or played badly Marsh said so, and usually he said so with moustache bristling in a way that brooked neither argument nor contradiction He loathed indo-lence and lack of application. The threat of terrorism exists in all major cities, and Foreign Office advice paints a gloomy picture. In addition, the earthquake two weeks ago, which killed 50,000 people and has made millions more homeless, has devastated rural northern areas. The tragedy seems to have redoubled the determination to make the tour both worthwhile and successful..
Pakistan have promised unprecedented security for England's cricketers, supporters and travelling press. Government and cricket authorities alike are also intent on making the tour as relaxed as possible, to show a global audience that the state of the country is not as desperate or dangerous as widely supposed They may have their work cut out. When Drechsler described a passage in a book stating that she had been fed steroids as "a lie", she was successfully sued by the author; she was ordered to pay £7,500 and to issue a public apology. In August she was honoured with a Fair Play Award by the International Association of Athletics Federations.. Stasi files record her reporting on the behaviour of team-mates, under the code-name Springen (Jump) They also list drug doses administered to her.
The German club record set in 1984 by Geipel and the Jena team, 42.20sec, also survives as a world best time by a club quartet, though Geipel wants it removed.WOMEN'S LONG JUMP7.48m, Heike Drechsler, Neubrandenburg, 1988.The multi-talented Drechsler is also co-holder of the German and European 200m records with Marita Koch (both 21.71sec). No athlete has managed to get within 1.25sec of it in the present millennium.WOMEN'S 4 x 100m RELAY41.37sec, East German national team - Silke Gladisch, Sabine Rieger, Ingrid Auerswald, Marlies G?- Canberra 1985.Another world record that has stood since the 1985 World Cup, achieved with help of Ines Geipel's club colleagues: Auerswald, an Olympic 100m bronze medallist, and G? a world record holder and world champion at 100m. His time stands as a European record, ahead of a queue of four Britons: Iwan Thomas (44.36), Roger Black (44.37), Mark Richardson (44.37) and David Grindley (44.47).WOMEN'S 400m47.60sec, Marita Koch, World Cup, Canberra 1985.Koch's time has stood unchallenged as a world record since the 1985 World Cup. I want to do get on with my life."TROUBLED TIMES: The marks set to go?MEN'S 400m44.33sec, Thomas Sch?be, World Championships, Rome 1987.The bespectacled Sch?be was an unlikely winner of the 400m world title in the Stadio Olimpico. "I want the act of giving back the record to be the line drawn under my sports career. Now living as Andreas Krieger, the European women's shot-put champion of 1986 is one of 160 sportsmen and women fighting a case for compensation against Jenapharm.Geipel herself has kept out of the courts "I don't want to be a victim my entire life," she said.