Steroids led German athlete to sex change

BERLIN, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- A onetime East German track star says steroids led her down the path to a sex-change operation that turned her from a woman into a man.

Andreas Krieger was a women's shot put champion in the 1980s when he was Heidi Krieger but she tells CNN that her hormones were so altered by performance-enhancing drugs that she began to morph into a man.

"I felt much more attracted to women and just felt like a man," Krieger said this week. "But I knew I was not lesbian."

Krieger won the European women's championship in 1986 and underwent her sex-change surgery in 1997.

Krieger said she was fed a steady regimen of steroids that her coaches told her vitamins. CNN said it is estimated that East Germany had as many as 10,000 athletes on steroids during its sporting heyday.