Eckert Arbeit, the former East German Coach and now albatross around South Africa’s neck went ahead and put his foot in it at an IAAF seminar in Moscow just the other day.
Always one for a good story, he fell back on our old CF.com favourite - the Ben Johnson squat before the Seoul Final classic.
He claimed to have witnessed it and said the East Germans got it on film!! He even came up with a new weight- a bit less than the 600 claimed by the earlier Guru BS artist.
For anyone who has missed it in the past, there were no weights at the warm-up stadium in Seoul, so it couldn’t have happened even if we’d wanted it to- which we didn’t! Hopefully, one of the attendees on the site can elaborate on his “presentation”
South African coaches have been on here recently, claiming that Arbeit is a bullshit artist.
I guess you can draw your own conclusions.
I wanna see that East German video…not that stuff Rupert watches…the Ben weightlifting footage
The stuff Rupert watches? You have a video on Susen Tiedtke??
Would have to be a cartoon
Charlie if we went by the number of eyewitnesses then it definitely happened…never let the truth get in the way of a good story 
Now Arbeit’s manager/cohort/agent Frank Dick is claiming the same thing! Fucking amazing!
Are you watching this live?
Well, I was watching Ben live in Seoul- which is obviously more than can be said for any of these “experts”!!
OK then, I believe you! 
Surely the ‘word’ must be out by now; why do certain people insist on it?
[QUOTE=Charlie Francis]Always one for a good story, he fell back on our old CF.com favourite - the Ben Johnson squat before the Seoul Final classic.
He claimed to have witnessed it and said the East Germans got it on film!! He even came up with a new weight- a bit less than the 600 claimed by the earlier Guru BS artist.
For anyone who has missed it in the past, there were no weights at the warm-up stadium in Seoul, so it couldn’t have happened even if we’d wanted it to- which we didn’t! Hopefully, one of the attendees on the site can elaborate on his “presentation”
QUOTE]
Thats interesting. I had assumed Davies way of getting Ben ready to sprint was to have him do jumping jacks until he puked. Not have him squat heavy:D JK.
Here is the real story.
Ben had one very heavy barbell made of depleted uranium , hidden behind some stairs in the stadium.
Arbeit,CP ,Davies and Dick took it out while Charlie was watching some interesting glute development on the female sprinters.
It only took 30 seconds…ben squatted, and the fearsome foursome hide back again, with the super heavy barbell, while Charlie turned back and saw Ben sitted , appearantly more “activated” than usual…
They lied and said it’s true and now can’t back away from the lie.
What does it say about the rest of their info? In Moscow, Arbeit also claimed that Marita Koch was doing 450m repeats while towing a tire before her WR. I’ve seen EG docs in the posession of a site member and I don’t recall seeing that.
While the EG girls did pull tires, I wonder if Arbeit has any idea what was really done or when. I was told tires out to 80 or 100m for the sprinters.
I did see 4 x 300m in the 34 sec range with short breaks in the doc, which is amazing enough! The 4 x 300m story was also repeated by Marita to Perec later. Marita’s husb/coach also told me of a 21.56 sec 200m time trial before leaving the GDR for Canberra.
Davies was there holding the camera for Dick and Arbeit (or was it Arbeit’s Dick?)
And no-one would have been the wiser if CP hadn’t pulled back the curtain at the last moment!
While we’re on the subject of fantasies. Ben spoke to an Italian female Long Jumper at the track one afternoon and the Italian papers reported the next day thet they were engaged, which severely pissed off her real fiancee back home!
Don’t you know, Famous people are 1 of 2 things,
1 - either getting married
2 - or getting divorced
There are no friendships or casual moments of meeting new people when you are famous!!
Capturing a moment in time: Just logging this as early November, 2007 on the calendar of bullshit for future reference. (geez, I’m worried I’m turning into a librarian - mind of an librarian, body of an accountant argghhh )
I’m proud of my accountants body. Taken me 10 years to get one, where as most other people take a year 
So Arbeit must be number ? (3 that I have heard of)
I was at the EACA conference in Moscow and Dr. Arbeit stated that the East German coaches caught Ben on video tape squatting 240kg after the semi final in Seoul. This point was raised as part of a discussion on preloading athletes prior to competition. Dr. Arbeit stated the type of preload work you do must be specific to the capacity of the individual athlete. He mentioned a typical EG sprint workout on a Wednesday (prior to a Saturday competition) would be 1 x 80m / 1 x 120m at 95% with 20 minutes rest. He also mentioned that Marita Koch ran 2 x 200m from a rolling start in 22.5 immediately prior to her WR, and that she had run workouts that year of 3 x 460m pulling a 12kg tire with 20 minutes rest.
I thought the reference to Ben was humorous because I had read previous posts on this site regarding Ben and the “Seoul Squat”.
back to the payrolls, you…