Ines Geipel was raised in a family loyal to the communist party and was an internationally known public face of the GDR as member of the national track and field athletics’ selection. When she had fallen in love with a Mexican athlete, she pondered to defect. But plans to flee the country were thwarted by the State Security. In the aftermath, she was subjected to measures of so-called "Zersetzung" (i.e. secret methods of control and psychological manipulation) until her professional career as an athlete was destroyed.
Geipel therefore had to start a new career outside of athletics. She studied German philology in Jena and moved more and more openly in oppositional circles. After fleeing the country via Hungary in the summer of 1989, she enrolled at the university of Darmstadt studying philosophy there. Since 2001, she has been professor for German poetic language at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. Geipel fights for the legal recognition of GDR doping victims. Since the 1990's, she has also been working as a publicist. Together with Joachim Walther she founded the "Archiv of Suppressed Literature in the GDR".