Olympic Games have been the center point of various controversies, scandals, and even tragedies since their re-establishment in the late 19th century, therefore we’ve decided to take a look at the biggest Olympic scandals of all time.
It doesn’t really come as a surprise that Olympic tournaments (both summer and winter ones) have yielded as many scandals as they have. Olympic Games represent the pinnacle of sports competitions. Winning the Olympic gold is every athlete’s dream and earning the right for his/hers national anthem to be played at the medal-awarding ceremony is probably the greatest honor an athlete can attain. Furthermore, Olympic games are only being held once in every four years which leaves a very limited number of opportunities for an athlete to win them. With all this in mind, it’s understandable why some people resort to cheating – though hardly condonable.
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Controversies and scandals aren’t reserved for Olympic tournaments alone. Sadly, wherever there’s a sports competition, some kind of controversy follows as we have so often witnessed. NFL, for instance, is an organization whose foundations have been shaken numerous times. Here’s a list of 14 biggest NFL scandals of all time to demonstrate the previous statement. You can compare the ramifications of these scandals yourselves after you go through both of the lists
In this list of biggest Olympic scandals of all time, we’ll revisit events from the dawn of modern Olympics, all the way to the latest ones. Some of them have been mostly forgotten, but some have had consequences that are still being felt today. Olympic scandals and controversies over the years have been created by athletes, executives, politicians, referees and even audience. There’s no real way to determine which scandal is bigger, and hence, to rank the scandals by their impact. After all, let us not make a controversy by ranking controversies. Finally, we’re aware that there’s simply no way to mention all the scandals that have occurred during these 120 years modern Olympics are being held (disregarding the World War I and II years). That’s why we’ll also give you a few (dis)honorable mentions along the way as well, as we list the Olympic scandals that were most talked about that we could find on the Internet.
11. Olympic Boycotts
Let us start with numerous Olympic Game boycotts that have occurred over the years – mostly for political reasons. Cold War has kept many people on edge for years, and tensions were felt across the entire globe. Needless to say, Cold War has managed to find its way to the Olympic Games too. Most (in)famous Olympic tournament boycotts have happened in the early eighties. The United States have decided to boycott the 1980 games in Moscow due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This lead to boycott support from countries like Japan, West Germany, China, and Canada among others. Of course, the USSR and their Eastern Bloc allies would get their chance to return the favor during the following summer Olympics held in Los Angeles in 1984. These, however, weren’t neither the first nor the only Olympic Games boycotts. First official boycott happened in Melbourne, in 1956. Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands, among others, decided to protest the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon, on the other hand, decided to skip Australia because of French and British invasion of the Suez. China too decided to boycott the games because Taiwan was allowed to participate. In the following years, we had a couple more China-Taiwan episodes with different outcomes, South Africa, and Rhodesia being banned for segregation, and the list goes on. It’s sad when politics ruin an event which is supposed to celebrate sports spirit. Should I remind you that all wars in Hellenic world used to be suspended during the ancient Olympics?
10. Austrians Juicing Up
What happens when a group of Austrian Nordic skiers decides to partake in systematic doping? They get banned from the Olympics for life. That’s exactly what happened to 6 athletes from the Austrian camp during the winter Olympics in Turin, 2006. Italian police found ample evidence to testify to Austrian’s systematic drug abuse after storming their rooms. Blood packs, syringes, hemoglobin meter and other accompanying equipment were evidence enough that Austrian skiers were involved in blood transfusion doping. Of course, the discovery wouldn’t be possible without the presence of Walter Mayer – Austrian team’s head coach who was banned from the games already for his involvement in seemingly identical doping case during the games in Salt Lake City, 2002. An icing on the cake – Mayer managed to escape the police initially, only to crash his car into the roadblock. Apart from being relieved of his duties within the Austrian team, he was also sent to the psych ward for his suicidal tendencies.
9. Marion Jones Case
Speaking of doping – here’s arguably the best-known case in Olympic Games history. She had won three gold and a couple of bronze medals in Sydney, 2000 only to be stripped off of all of them later. After years of investigations, Jones finally admitted using performance-enhancing drugs in 2007. Marion Jones is, however, only one of such cases. Performance-enhancing drugs have been used by Olympic athletes for a very long time. Ben Johnson, Lance Armstrong, and Andreea Răducan are only a few examples, but who knows how many athletes have gotten away with cheating over the years? What’s more important – it seems there are more and more such cases with every new Olympic event. . That’s a truly devastating fact, but, at least, the anti-doping control is doing a fine job.
8. Gender mix-up
This one happened a long time ago, but the sheer absurdity of the scandal forces us to include it in our list of 11 biggest Olympic scandals of all time. The year is 1932 and games are being held in Los Angeles. Stella Walsh (known as Stanisława Walasiewicz at the time) manages not only to win the gold in the 100m sprint but to tie the current world record multiple times. Four years later in Berlin, Stella Walsh loses to Helen Stephens, who gets accused of being a man. After submitting to genital inspection test, Stephens verifies her gender and gets to keep the gold. What’s ironic in this story is that Stella Walsh was actually the one that could have been accused of the same. After her death in 1980, it was concluded that Walsh was intersex, and ever since, the International Olympic Committee has started to drop gender determination tests.
7. Jim Thorpe Case
It wasn’t until 1988 that the Olympic Committee decided to phase out the amateurism rules. This came way too late for Jim Thorpe, who had won gold in pentathlon and decathlon, in Stockholm, 1912. It was found out that Thorpe was paid for couple semi-professional baseball seasons which effectively labeled him a professional athlete. To be fair, Thorpe was one of the most versatile athletes ever to compete at the Olympics, but was that a reason to discriminate him? He has played football, basketball, and baseball – all on the professional level. At least, Thorpe’s legacy lives on as his medals were reinstated in 1983 – 30 years after his death.
6. Salt Lake City Olympics
There were a few strong controversy cases at Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, but the actual games earn the spot on this list themselves. Utah’s capital had won the games in rather shady circumstances. Several IOC members have been expelled from the committee after being accused of accepting valuable gifts for their votes. Salt Lake City Organizing Committee leaders have also been charged for the incident, but they were later acquitted. The games were held, and that’s what counts in the end – even though it certainly wasn’t fair towards other bidding cities. This, however, is a standard procedure, it would seem – which makes it very hard to sanction.
5. Quid Pro Quo
Since we’re already at Salt Lake City, it wouldn’t hurt to mention the figure skating voting scandal. Pair figure skating competition was won by Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia, but their victory raised suspicions. Canadians Jamie Salé and David Pelletier came in second because French judge’s score prevailed in Russians’ favor. The French judge, Marie-Reine Le Gougne later admitted she had been forced to vote the way she did by the head of French skating organization, Didier Gailhaguet. The deal was to favor the Russians in figure skating while they’ll return the favor in the ice dance discipline. This obvious quid pro quo deal ended with changed scoring system and couple gold medal winners. Some people, though, still believe that the Russians deserved their gold even without the interference.
4. The Whack Heard ‘Round the World
Here’s more figure skating. In 1994, world’s eyes were set upon scandal at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit. Nancy Kerrigan was clubbed to the knee, but luckily only ended with a sore. It turned out that the attack was instigated by Tonya Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and her bodyguard, Shawn Eckardt. And who was Tonya Harding? Of course, she was Kerrigan’s strongest rival. The attack was carried out by Shane Stant, who, as we know, failed to inflict any serious damage to Kerrigan’s knee – though she was still forced to withdraw from the national championship. In the end, Kerrigan managed to come second in Lillehammer, in 1994, while Harding finished eighth. In the aftermath, Harding got a lifetime ban from professional skating and all the men involved were prison sentenced.
3. Fixed Boxing Match
Everyone that saw the final fight in light middleweight category, in Seoul, 1988 is still dumbstruck by the result. Roy Jones, Jr. had simply destroyed his opponent Park Si-Hun, but judges ruled in South Korean boxer’s favor with three votes over two. Even 86 punches by Jones weren’t enough to win against the host country’s representative who only managed to land 32 punches. Things are much clearer today as three judges ruling in Si-Hun’s favor had been suspended for taking bribe by South Korean officials. However, IOC still stands by this decision and Si-Hun is still a champion, although he has apologized to his opponent for something which evidently wasn’t his fault.
2. Jesse Owens Puts the Aryan Race to Shame
So-called “Hitler Olympics” were riddled with controversies and scandals from day one. 1936 wasn’t really the best year for Berlin Olympics, but that train is long gone now anyway. Apart from certain boycotts, banning of Jewish athletes from the German team, obvious favoring of German athletes, Berlin games will be remembered thanks to Jesse Owens. African American athlete won four golden medals and inflicted a crushing blow to Hitler’s master race supremacy theory.
1. Munich Massacre
It’s neither a scandal nor a controversy, but a true tragedy. Still, as the biggest tragedy that ever happened during modern Olympics, Munich Massacre deserves the top spot on our list of 11 biggest Olympic scandals of all time. On September 5, 1972, 11 Israeli Olympic team members were taken hostage by 8 Palestinian members of Black September terrorist group. After failed rescue attempt, all Israeli team members were killed alongside 5 assailants and one German police officer. To this day, this remains the biggest tragedy that has ever occurred at the Olympic tournament. The event served as a warning for ever-increasing terrorist activity and a trigger for the establishment of special anti-terrorist units in Germany and France among other countries since it was clear that regular police force wasn’t up to the task.
