People Arrested For Cheating In Games Videos
People Arrested For Cheating In Games 2017
While the Olympics have numerous traditions, perhaps one of its most enduring is cheating. Since ancient times, athletes have often ignored the rules in their quest for glory. Below are just a few of the cheating scandals that have tarnished the Olympics.
Video Game Cheating
Charles William Ingram (born 6 August 1963) is a former British Army major who gained infamy for his appearance on the television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? In episodes recorded in September 2001, Ingram correctly answered fifteen questions to win the show's maximum prize of £1 million, but was denied the winnings due to suspicion of cheating.
People Arrested For Cheating In Games Against
Et Tu, Nero?
At the 67 CE Olympic Games, Roman Emperor Nero supposedly made frequent use of bribes—the first of which might have been to allow him to compete, as the early Games were traditionally limited to Greeks. Perhaps the most blatant example of his bribery occurred in the four-horse chariot race, in which he was allowed to compete with 10 horses. According to some reports, he fell from the chariot and did not complete the event. Nevertheless, officials still named him the winner.
Taking a Shortcut
The marathon course at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, was called “the most difficult a human being was ever asked to run over.” In addition to steep hills, traffic, and roaming wild dogs, the runners had to deal with soaring temperatures and humidity. Perhaps understandably, American runner Fred Lorz decided to rest after completing 9 miles (14.5 km), hitching a ride for the next 11 (17.7 km). When the car allegedly broke down, Lorz resumed running and won the event. However, his cheating was quickly discovered, and an ailing Thomas Hicks—who had been given strychnine, egg whites, and brandy during the race—was declared the winner.
“Dis-Onishchenko”
As the 1976 Montreal Olympics opened, Ukrainian athlete Boris Onishchenko was a favorite to medal in the pentathlon. An accomplished fencer, he was not expected to have any difficulty in the fencing portion of the event. However, trouble started when the British team noted that he’d been awarded a point even though he had failed to touch his opponent. (The swords were electric and programmed to register a point when an opponent was hit.) It was eventually discovered that his épée had been modified, enabling Onishchenko to press a button to falsely record a hit. With his plot foiled, Onishchenko was expelled from the Games.
Not So Fast
American sprinter Marion Jones was the golden girl at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where she became the first woman to win five track-and-field medals at a single Games. But her image quickly tarnished. Allegations of steroid use had long followed Jones, and in 2003 she was implicated in a federal investigation involving illegal steroid distribution by a laboratory named BALCO. Jones denied the claims, but in 2007 she pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about her drug use and admitted to having taken steroids. All of her results since 2000, including her Olympic titles, were annulled. She later served six months in prison.
The “Dirtiest Race”
The 100-meter event at the 1988 Seoul Games has been called the “dirtiest race” because of drug use by the competitors. Although Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson initially won, he was stripped of the medal just days later, after testing positive for stanozolol, an anabolic steroid. Johnson later claimed that it wasn’t really cheating if everyone else was using drugs. While that was maybe not the most-convincing argument, Johnson had a point. His gold medal was given to second-place finisher Carl Lewis, an American who had tested positive for banned stimulants during the U.S. Olympic trials that year but had avoided a suspension. Britain’s Linford Christie, who was upgraded to the silver medal, tested positive for pseudoephedrine, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) later cleared him, after he blamed the test result on ginseng tea.
Horseplay
Humans aren’t the only ones tested for illegal drugs at the Olympics. Horses competing in the equestrian events are also scrutinized, and at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing the horse Camiro, ridden by Norwegian Tony André Hansen, tested positive for capsaicin. Although commonly used for minor injuries in a topical ointment made from chili peppers, capsaicin can be a stimulant and is thus on the list of substances banned by the Olympics. Hansen and Camiro had won bronze in a show-jumping event but were stripped of the medal.
Putting the Bad in Badminton
At the 2012 Olympics in London, a round-robin format was introduced for the first time in badminton, with less than stellar results. Four women’s teams—two from South Korea and one each from China and Indonesia—were expelled from the Games for match fixing. After lackluster play that drew boos from spectators, the teams were accused of purposely trying to lose their matches in order to improve their draw in the next round. They were disqualified for “not using one’s best efforts to win.”
Swimming in Steroids
For much of the 1970s and ’80s, East German women swimmers dominated their opponents. Notably, at the 1976 Games in Montreal, they won 10 of the 13 events and set 8 world records; in comparison, they’d won no gold medals at the previous Games. Accusations of steroid use became common, though no swimmers tested positive. In 1991, however, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was revealed that East Germany had run a state-operated doping program for its athletes, with the female swimmers producing the most-notable results. In most cases, the athletes had been unaware that they were being given banned substances.