Uta Pippig Is Quick to Capitalize on That Wall Coming Down

BOSTON — She was with Adidas, as most German runners are at one time or another, and then Reebok offered $250,000 and Nike upped the ante to $300,000, which is a lot of deutsche marks at any currency exchange rate.

It was a lot more than Uta Pippig had earned in the East German army, even with the rank of athlete first class, and so she signed the four-year contract and took “Just do it” lessons.

Is this a great country or what?

It’s a country Pippig appreciates more than most Americans do, now that the Wall has come tumbling down and she and coach-companion Dieter Hogan are free to indulge in capitalistic marathon running.

The Boston marathon made her, and she has made it her own, having never finished lower than third in four races. As the winner last year, she blew kisses and waved as she crossed the finish in women’s course-record time, 2 hours 21 minutes 45 seconds. And she has set her sights on a world record in Monday’s 99th running.

It would be worth $150,000, and Nike would probably chime in with some bonus money.

She wears No. F1, but she might as well wear concentric red and white rings. She is a target, and she knows it, because she became the world’s No. 1 woman marathon runner here last year.

It’s a blessing and a bane.

“Sometimes I put too much pressure on myself,” Pippig said.

“Hey, on Monday, I can be second or third or maybe first. There are reasons why you finish there, and maybe you learn from them. If you think you are on the top, will always be on the top, you will lose.”

She grew up East Germany, in a system that produced some of the world’s greatest athletes. But she asked embarrassing questions of people who weren’t used to giving answers.

Why should she pledge allegiance to the Communist Party to travel to international events? Why couldn’t she run races on the roads to supplement her training?

They were questions that demanded more than “because” answers, and when travel was permitted between East and West Berlin, she and Hogan lit out one rainy night, crossing over on Jan. 5, 1990, with four suitcases and a car full of dreams.

Suddenly, she had horizons beyond the Wall. She could run anywhere in the world. She could become a doctor. She could make money. She could be Boston’s darling, with an easy smile and an accent that demands a microphone be shoved in her face.

But it hasn’t been easy.

Her medical courses at Humboldt University in East Berlin were judged inferior by the Western officials suddenly in charge of a combined country, and she was told to take them over again, at the Free University of Berlin.

She ran and she studied, dividing her concentration so effectively that she ran the third-fastest marathon by a woman and finished in the top 10% of her class on her medical tests last year, combining physical and mental exhaustion.

And then she rested and rebuilt herself.

“We went to Fiji and New Zealand, you know, for six weeks and learned to scuba dive,” she said. “It was wonderful, beautiful, and people can’t talk to you there. It helped me.

“And finishing school, now I can read a book as I want to, but my--what do you call them?--classmates, are a year ahead of me.”

And they will get yet another year or more ahead in their internships, because there is Boston, this year and next, and the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

“After that, she makes her decision as to when she will finish her studies and become a doctor,” Hogan said.

The next two years involve a goal--to be the first woman to run a marathon in 2:20. The Record is 2:21:06 by Ingrid Kristiansen.

“I hope I can do (a 2:20 race) first,” Pippig said. “I don’t know. If we can stay together for maybe 30K (on Monday), if the weather is good--but I don’t want to say because anything can happen. You can forget your water bottle during a race, anything.

“Everybody wants a world record. Then you are the best, but I just want to win.”

There are horizons aplenty for a 29-year-old woman still relishing a taste of freedom and success on her own terms, with sudden security from shoe companies willing to throw money at her feet.

“It makes it easier,” she said of her new wealth. “But on the other hand, you train much harder because of it. You are in sport 24 hours a day.”

And enjoying her options, while appreciating that she is lucky.

“(The Wall coming down) was at a good time for me,” Pippig said. “But sometimes I am sad because there were many people who were older and did not have the opportunity I have.”

The opportunity to say, “Just do it” for a lot of money. Is this a great country or what?