Cheating In Olympic Games

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How Madeline and Margaret de Jesus two-timed the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. With dreams of winning Olympic gold for Puerto Rico. Us” have us thinking about cheating.

  • 13), Japanese short-track speed skater Kei Saito became the first Olympic athlete to be suspended from the 2018 Winter Games due to doping allegations.
  • Doping has been the hot topic at this year's Olympics in Rio, but cheating is nothing new when it comes to the Games.
  • You will know of many athletes accused of cheating at the Olympics by using performance enhancing drugs (e.g. Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, and many others). What you may not be aware of, is that there are many other ways athletes have found to cheat throughout the history of the Olympic Games. These are just the ones who have been caught.

The Olympics is about 'the true spirit of sportmanship' and celebrates some of the finest and most prolific sportspeople of all time. Unfortunately, not all winners have got ahead the fair and legal way, as cheating in the Olympics is just about as old as the games itself.

Take a look at nine of the most well known examples of Olympics cheating:

Ben Johnson

In the 1988 Seoul Olympics Canadian Ben Johnson won the Gold Medal for the 100-meter dash. However, just a day after his big win he tested positive for an anabolic steroid and was stripped of his medal. It was then awarded to American Carl Lewis, who ironically had tested positive for stimulants during the 1988 trials, but this had been overturned by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Cheating In Olympic Games Game

Madeline and Margaret de Jesus

Like something out of a Hollywood movie, Puerto Rican twins Madeline and Margaret de Jesus attempted to outsmart the 1984 Los Angeles Games. When Madeline hurt herself while competing in the long jump, she sent her identical twin sister Margaret to compete in the 4x400 meter relay. Once the cheif coach of the Puerto Rican Olympics team discovered what they'd done, he pulled out the entire team from the Olympics.

Fred Lorz

An early example of Olympics cheating, American Fred Lorz 'won' the marathon in the 1904 Olympic Game in St. Louis. Problem is, he had actually stopped running at the nine mile mark claiming exhaustion and given a lift by his coach in a car for eleven miles, only for him to then run the remaining part. When spectators complained that he had not run the whole race, the title was given to fellow American Thomas Hicks, who had also got some help in the race, as he used the performance enhancing drug strychnine.

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Spiridon Belokas

Another Olympic Marathon cheater, in 1896 Spiridon achieved third place in the race, only for it to be discovered that he had completed part of it by horse and carriage. He was disqualified, and as the first two winners were Greek, his disqualification deprived the host country from winning the top three prizes in the race.

Marion Jones

American sprinter and long jumper shot to fame in the 2000 Sydney Games when she won three gold medals and two bronze medals. Suspicions quickly arose, not just because of her incredible feats but more importantly because her husband (an American shot putter) tested positive for steroids. She vehemently denied any illegal doings, until in 2007 when she admitted she had used steroids in training for the Sydney games. All of her medals were stripped.

Boris Onischenko

In the 1976 Olympics, Ukranian Boris cheated while fencing British oponent Jim Fox by having modified his weapon with a click that tallied up his score without him actually touching his opponents weapon. The British team exposed his cheating and he was disqualified from the games and the press labeled him as 'Boris the cheat.' Fined in his home country of Ukraine, he is last known to be working as a taxi driver in Kiev.

Tunisian modern pentathlon team

In the 1960 Rome Games the Tunisian modern pentathlon team got off to an epicly poor start. To start off, each member fell of their horses, followed by another athlete almost drowning and then another disqualified from the shooting section because he accidentally almost shot a judge. To ease off the humiliation, during the fencing competition they simply sent their best fencer back for each part, hoping the fencing mask would be good enough a disguise. Believe it or not, this cheating attempt failed, and the entire team was thrown out of the games.

East German Female Swimmers

The womens East German swimmers did exceptionally well throughout the 70's and 80's Olympics. However, steroid use was long suspected, especially considering the members noticeably deep voices and exceptionally muscular frames. While they denied steroid use for many years, in 1991 the team admitted that they had indeed used these illegal performance enhancing drugs.

Dora Ratjen

Dora Ratjen won the women's high jump record in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. There was just one slight problem, Dora was actually Horst. Years later, Horst claimed that he was ordered by the Nazis to pose as a woman, 'for the sake of the honor and glory of Germany.' He lived the life of a female athlete for three years.

Cheating Games For Free

You will know of many athletes accused of cheating at the Olympics by using performance enhancing drugs (e.g. Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, and many others). What you may not be aware of, is that there are many other ways athletes have found to cheat throughout the history of the Olympic Games. These are just the ones who have been caught.

Extra Grip

For the 1908 Olympic tug-of-war competition, the Liverpool police team competed in 'enormous shoes, so heavy, in fact, it was with great effort they could lift their feet from the ground.'. The rules had stipulated ordinary shoes. The team from Liverpool insisted this was their regulation police footwear. The Americans protested, but to no avail and subsequently withdrew in protest.

Catching a lift

School Cheating Games

There are two well known instances in the Olympic marathon in which the athletes have not completed all of the course on foot. At the first Olympic marathon in 1896, Greek athlete Spiridon Belokas crossed the finish line in third place, but was later found to have covered part of the course by carriage rather than on foot, and was subsequently disqualified. In 1904, American Fred Lorz, stopped running nine minutes into the marathon event and caught a lift in a car part of the way. When officials realized, they immediately disqualified him, bumping up Thomas Hicks to the winning position.

You Can't Foil the Fencing Judges

In 1976, a very elaborate ruse was staged by Ukrainian athlete Boris Onischenko. For the fencing component of the modern pentathlon, he had wired his sword so that he could trigger the electronic scoring system with his hand and register a hit at will.

Not as They Seem

In the 1904 boxing competition, a fighter named James Bollinger entered under the name of popular local boxer Carroll Burton. The impostor succeeded in winning one match before he was found out and disqualified. Another competitor in the competition, American Jack Egan, was also fighting under a different name. The following year it was discovered Egan's real name was Frank Joseph Floyd. Egan was disqualified for competing under an assumed name and stripped of his silver medal.

There are a few examples of competitors in female events later being discovered to be genetically male, though these may not always be cases of purposeful deception. One instance from the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the German Dora Ratjen who finished fourth in the women's high jump was later found to be a man. Some have claimed that the Nazis ordered him to pose as a woman.

Cheating

Olympic artistic gymnastics events have a strict age minimum. Chinese gymnasts have long been accused of fielding underage athletes, though only the case of gymnast Dong Fangxiao from the 2000 Summer Olympics has been proven. She won a bronze medal, but the award was stripped when she was later discovered to have competed underage.

Switching Places

At the 1984 Los Angeles Games, Puerto Rico's Madeline de Jesus was injured while competing in the long jump, and was unable to run in the 4×400-meter relay. So Madeline enlisted her identical twin sister to stand in for her in the qualifying heat. However, when the coach found out he pulled the team out of the final.

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In 1960, the struggling Tunisian modern pentathlon team decided to secretly send out their best swordsman each time hidden behind the mask. However, the third time the same fencer came out the ruse was discovered.

Tricked by the Sound

In 1932, after winning the silver in equestrian dressage, Swedish equestrian Bertil Sandström was demoted to last for clicking to his horse to give it encouragement, which was against the rules. He asserted that it was a creaking saddle making the sounds.

Cheating in olympic sports

Corrupt or Just Incompetent Officials?

The 1972 Olympic men's basketball final was one of the most controversial in Olympic history. The tournament favorites the USA had dominated the series, and with a score from the free throw line in the final seconds went into the lead. What followed was confusion on and off the bench and on the scoring table, with the final three seconds being replayed a few times before the USSR were able to score and win the game. The protest on the legitimacy of the final plays was dismissed, and the US team refused to accept their medals.

At the 1988 Games in Seoul, in a highly controversial 3–2 judge's decision, South Korean boxer Park Si-Hun defeated American Roy Jones, Jr., despite an obvious one-sided affair with Jones landing 86 punches to Park's 32.

And More Olympic Cheats

  • The Spanish basketball team at the 2000 Paralympics pretended to be disabled to win the gold medal.
  • In 1968 the East German bobsleigh team were disqualified after being discovered taking a blow torch to their runners immediately before a race.

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Cheating In Olympic Sports

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