HERE is the key to the disappointment felt over Denise Lewis’s decision to work with the former head coach of the old German Democratic Republic, Dr Ekkart Arbeit.

Lewis is a talented and popular athlete, gold medallist in the heptathlon at the Sydney Olympics. More than that, she is a woman. The regime in which Arbeit found himself systematically doped its elite athletes and paid particular attention to women. Why? Because male hormones worked especially well when given to women.

Today, countless former women athletes from the old East Germany live with severe health problems because of the drugs they were forced to take. Last Thursday the former swimmer Karen Konig filed a suit for compensation against the German Olympic Committee. Almost 200 similar claims have been submitted, and it is accepted that many more former competitors decided against seeking damages because to do so would be to admit publicly that they cheated.

When Lewis accepted the advice of her British coach, Frank Dick, and started working with Arbeit, did she stop for a moment and think of what happened in the GDR? It is true Arbeit was not prosecuted, but no athletes made specific charges against him.

Documentary evidence points to the extent of his involvement and the importance of his role. Did Lewis want to know about Arbeit’s past and whether his morality had changed from what it was 20 or 30 years ago? Ultimately the question is whether she cares.

Most observers will view Lewis’s decision as yet another example of the moral capitulation within British sport. Those in high places are not prepared to disapprove publicly of her collaboration with Arbeit. The head of UK Athletics, David Moorcroft, the sports minister, Richard Caborn, and UK Sport’s chief executive, Richard Callicott, all sit on the same pathetic fence.

Maybe in the glasshouse of British sport the so-called leaders long ago forfeited their right to throw stones. Lewis could ask why there has been so much fuss about Arbeit when there has been so little about Britain’s chief rowing coach, Jürgen Grobler. She might wonder if Grobler has escaped attention because he was coach to the country’s greatest male athlete, Sir Steve Redgrave.

She would have a point.

Grobler worked as a men’s and women’s rowing coach in the GDR from 1972 until 1990. During that time, East Germany’s rowers were the best in the world, and they were systematically doped.

Five years ago, the Amateur Rowing Association issued a statement defending its relationship with Grobler: “We neither approve nor condone what may or may not have happened under the political regime of the GDR but we believe we should approach these matters with understanding, given the position facing many athletes and coaches in those years under a political regime that is alien to our way of life.”

In other words, the coaches were also victims of the system. Hitler’s officers were merely carrying out orders.

What is the difference between Grobler and Arbeit? Neither was prosecuted, and though Arbeit was higher in the chain of command, did both not accept the immoral regime? There may be more documentary evidence about Arbeit, but so what? The question is straightforward: should coaches who were once involved in a regime that systematically doped athletes be subsequently allowed to work with elite sports people? Legally, they cannot be stopped, but there is a moral issue that transcends legalities.

We owe all of those whose health was destroyed by drugs.

We are right to question Lewis’s coach, just as we are wrong not to question Matthew Pinsent’s current coach.