Drechsler is one of Germany's most successful and adored athletes but also alienated over her past in former communist East Germany.

Allegations that she worked for the secret police, the Stasi, and the revelation of the decayed state's systematic doping programme have made the world and Olympic long jump champion Drechsler person to be loved or hated.

Drechsler is well aware of this and feels unfairly treated as she sits in a cafe in the southern German city of Karlsruhe shortly ahead of her 50th birthday Tuesday.

So she takes a sip from her cup of tea and tells dpa: "I have a few things to tell.

"There were times after reunification when I felt like fair game. I was hunted, everyone shot at me," she says. "Many opportunities opened up for me. But you were also labelled. Sport in the GDR - ah: doping!"

Drechsler rose to fame when she won the long jump at age 18 at the inaugural world championships in 1983 in Helsinki, then competing under her maiden name Daute.

The Soviet Union-led boycott prevented her participating at the 1984 Olympics but she won the first of four straight European long jump titles 1986 in Stuttgart, where she was received warmly by the West German fans.

Drechsler says that she didn't feel really at home in unified Germany until she returned to Stuttgart in 1993 for the world championships where she won another long jump gold in front of an ecstatic crowd.

By then she had won her first Olympic medals for both countries: long jump silver and 100m and 200m bronze 1988 in Seoul for the East, and long jump gold 1992 in Barcelona for the unified country. Another Olympic long jump gold followed at age 35 at Sydney 2000.

Drechsler recalls that she was at home with her newborn son Tony when the Berlin Wall came down little over 25 years ago in November 1989.

"I was 24, I was happy that the change came," she says.

It didn't take long though until she was implicated in the book "Doping Documents" from Brigitte Berendonk who said, citing doctors' reports, that Drechsler had been given the widely-used steroid oral-turinabol.

Drechsler takes another sip of tea before saying that she stands by her life but admitting that "with today's knowledge I didn't properly question what was happening at the time."

But she also reiterates that she never took forbidden substances intentionally.

"Documents have shown that there was systematic doping in the GDR. But every athlete and every official has his or her own story, and some of the doctors' documents are also contradictory. Should I have sued them all in the end?" she asks.

The past even haunts Drechsler a decade after her retirement as the induction of her and sprinter Marita Koch into the Hall of Fame of the ruling body IAAF prompted criticism from German athletics supremo Clemens Prokop.

"I consider it unjust and I am disappointed by the statements of Clemens Prokop. Nothing new was said. And I have always commented on doping and said that I firmly condemn the doping practices of the GDR."

Prokop insists his comments were directed against the IAAF and not Drechsler who had won many medals for the unified country, but Drechsler calls it "very disappointing that all of my performances, including after 1989, are denigrated."

Drechsler has long been employed by a German health insurance company in Karlsruhe, and in her marketing department job often has the 1992 and 2000 gold medals with her when she visits schools or holds speeches.

The rest - medals, trophies, diplomas, photos and films - is stashed away in her cellar in 10 boxes.

The upcoming birthday, with half her life in the East and the other half in the unified country, will bring back many memories as travels east to throw a big party in her birth town of Gera.

"I wanted to limit it to 100 people. But now it will be more and we will really let rip," she pledges. After all, "it's amazing what has all happened," Drechsler says.

She takes a deep breath and adds: "There were moments when I was stirred up quite a bit. Many fractions in my life. Each one has formed me, and I don't want to miss them."