- If you’re not good enough to win, you can always try to cheat. Just make sure you’re at least a good cheat.
In sports, you’re always aiming to win. But if you’re not quite good enough to achieve victory fair and square, there’s always another option — cheating.
It would be impossible for us to write a list of the best cheaters in sports history. After all, they have probably never been caught.
But there are plenty of examples of athletes who weren’t quite so successful. And some of them resorted to downright bizarre methods.
Here are just some of the strangest cheaters in the sporting world. Some of them used weird methods, while others’ attempts at cheating were just so blatantly obvious that it’s mindboggling.
1) Fred Lorz and the Motorized Marathon
Calling Fred Lorz an Olympic marathon runner is giving him a bit too much credit. A bricklayer by day, Lorz could probably beat the Average Joe in a long-distance race — but an Olympics-level runner he was not.
Despite not really training at all, he arrived first at the finish line of the marathon race in the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis. But he didn’t get there by running.
Around the nine-mile mark, Lorz brazenly hopped into a car that carried him over the next 11 miles. He then got out of the automobile and leisurely jogged to the end of the race.
Lorz didn’t even attempt to be discreet about cheating. From his car, he waved at the runners as he passed them.
Unsurprisingly, Lorz was stripped of his gold medal. He didn’t really care, though — the man claimed he participated in the race as a practical joke.
2) Donald Crowhurst and the Tragic Yacht Race
Donald Crowhurst was a British businessman and an amateur sailor. In 1969, he decided to participate in the Golden Globe Race, a solo yacht race around the world.
But neither Crowhurst’s skills nor boat was up to the challenge. At some point, he realized that if he went on, he’d surely capsize and drown.
So, he did the only reasonable thing — he pulled ashore in South America and started radioing bogus positions that made it seem like he was winning. Eventually, though, he understood that no one would ever believe his lies, considering he wasn’t even racing anymore.
Crowhurst went radio silent for three months. He finally called in to report that he was too far behind another sailor, Nigel Tetley, and he was prepared to give the race up.
But the radio told him that Tetley’s boat had sunk and Crowhurst was now about to win. That was too much for him — Crowhurst didn’t want to live the rest of his life with a liar’s brand.
Crowhurst threw himself overboard and let the sea swallow him. His body was never found.
3) Boris Onischenko’s Magic Sword
In the 1970s, Boris Onischenko was one of the most famous athletes in the Soviet Union, and the entire world. The three-time pentathlon winner was renowned as one of the best fencers in the world.
When he participated in the Montreal Olympics in 1976, Onischenko seemed unbeatable. It’s as if he had a magic sword that ensured his victory.
Literally. One competitor became suspicious as Onischenko kept gaining points for attacks he knew had missed.
As it turns out, Onischenko’s sword wasn’t magic. He had rigged the sword’s pressure-sensing mechanism so that he could give himself points by pressing a small trigger.
It was an ingenious mechanism, though. If it hadn’t been for that one sharp-eyed competitor, Onischenko’s device would’ve fooled the judges.
4) The Dirtiest Race in History
The 1988 Olympics took place in Seoul, South Korea. Competing in the men’s 100-meter race was Ben Johnson — the Usain Bolt of his time.
Johnson was a rising star runner. But when he broke the world record in the 100-meter dash, achieving a time of 9.79 seconds, the world could barely believe their eyes.
The man boasted that his record would stand for at least 50 years. But it didn’t last even a week.
It turned out that Johnson had pumped himself full of banned steroids. Before you judge him too harshly, though, he wasn’t the only cheater in the race.
Six out of the eight runners in the race ended up testing positive for doping. As a result, the Seoul 100-meter final earned the title of the Dirtiest Race in History.
5) The Spanish “Paralympics” Teams
In the 2000 Paralympics, the Spanish team won the gold medal in basketball. It should’ve been a moment worthy of celebration — but it instead turned into one of the biggest farces in the history of the Paralympics.
The Spanish team had a significant advantage over its competitors. Out of the 12 players, 10 had no disabilities whatsoever.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, things soon got even worse. Investigations discovered that two Spanish swimmers and one table tennis player also had no handicaps or disabilities.
It’s not like the Spanish were the only ones cheating, though. Russia had also sent in competitors with no disabilities.
It’s one thing to cheat in regular sports. But to cheat in the Paralympics? That’s low.
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