It was 20 years ago that the Berlin Wall came tumbling down and along with it the fall of communist countries in Eastern Europe.
It was a victory for the idealism of freedom, which was often perceived to go hand in hand with capitalism.
Are we free in a capitalist society that often makes us feel enslaved to consumerism and consumption?
Are capitalist countries performing better in sport than the small nation of East Germany did behind the Iron Curtain?
East Germany, or the German Democratic Republic, was one of the eastern European nations that was aligned with the Soviet Union, and sport was used by the Eastern Bloc as an agent of social change controlled and manipulated by the state.
With rose-tinted glasses on, sport was an excellent tool for nation building, integration, strengthening national defence, health and hygiene, promoting certain social policies, and enhancing international recognition and prestige.
It seemed to work, too.
At the Seoul Olympics in 1988 the Soviet Union topped the medals table with 132 medals, followed closely by East Germany with 102 and the United States with 94.
The state system gave all individuals, irrespective of their ethnicity, gender or age, the opportunity to achieve their potential and pursue sporting excellence.
Of course, this often led to extreme exploitation for some children and individuals, which included being forced to take anabolic steroids.
Has the face of sport changed much since the fall of the Eastern Bloc?
Were capitalist nations and athletes as good and pure as they were made out to be during the Cold War?
Have steroids and doping in general been eliminated from sport as a result of pulling the Iron Curtain off its rails?
In 1988, Ben Johnson the Canadian became Ben Johnson the Jamaican when he tested positive for drugs after winning the 100m final.
We now know that other athletes in that final were not as righteous and innocent as they made out, including Mr America, Carl Lewis, whose lithe body and million-dollar smile were portrayed as the antithesis to Johnson's bulky frame and moody mug shots.
Johnson's positive test did create momentum, however, for the anti-doping movement because it suggested that this doping problem was not just an Eastern Bloc problem.
As well as an intensive doping programme, sport academies and youth development programmes were popular in East Germany.
Since the 1990s, they have been popular in Australia and New Zealand in schools and government-funded initiatives.
So are we providing opportunities for these promising athletes or exploiting them? Is it a bit of both?Governments are still pumping resources and public funds into sport just like the Eastern Bloc did during the Cold War.
The rationale, however, has shifted.
The argument that sport, especially professional sport, develops character and strong, upstanding citizens is not as strong as it used to be.
Reasons for using public funds to promote sport are now more about economic growth and prosperity (although evidence for this is limited).
The Eastern Bloc used sport to promote an image of national unity, equality and success.
The Western Bloc also promotes this image, but uses market forces, globalisation and commercialism in an attempt to do so.
Has this capitalist approach been any more successful than the communist one? At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China (a communist nation) topped the medal table with 100 medals (51 gold), followed closely by the United States, which amassed 110 medals (36 gold), Russia (72 medals) and Germany (41 medals).
If the number of medals is a measure of success, then it's a close race between China and the US, and there is a lot of daylight between these two heavyweight nations and Russia and Germany, the big players of the 1980s.
Perhaps we should ask past athletes about their experiences in sport during the Cold War.
Athletes like Heidi Krieger, who accused her coach of giving her so many drugs that she was forced to become a man, undergoing a sex-change operation to become Andreas Krieger.
Sport can be a useful tool for portraying a certain national image to the world, but at what price to the individuals involved?
