Ever since the ancient greeks started, the Olympics, human nature always found a way to cheat in sports when large amounts of money got into the picture in the 20th century, the temptation was too big and sports cheating became a daily operation around the world. Here are the 10 athletes who thought they would get away with fraud it got caught and humiliated instead.
1. Michael Pineda, Pine Tar
Michael Pineda is a Dominican pitcher that plays for the Minnesota Twins in the MLB when he was a member of the new york Yankees in 2014, he did something very similar to what Dwight Howard was doing in the NBA and just like Dwight. It wasn’t a problem that he did it, but how obvious he’d been about it.
Pineda used pine tar during his time on the mounds, which was illegal, but it wasn’t severely penalized by applying pine tar. The baseball would have a better grip and not lose any of its speed and many pitchers throughout the league used pine tar. But during a game against the red sox in 2014, when it was especially cold and windy at the Fenway Park, Pineda decided he would need a lot of pine to be able to throw properly. So he applied a lot of it on his neck and from there to the baseball it was clear as day what he was doing and the officials immediately threw him out. Pineda got a 10-game suspension for doing something. Everybody else did too, but they were a little bit smarter and not making it blatantly obvious,
2. Sami Sosa, Corked Bat
In baseball, a corked bat is a specially modified baseball bat that has been filled with cork or other less dense substances to make the bat lighter a Lighter bat gives a hitter a quicker swing and may improve the hitter’s timing. In 2003, the famed right fielder Sammy Sosa played a game for his Chicago cubs against Tampa bay and he shattered his bat in the first inning no harm was done. It happens all the time. A player just gets another bat and the game resumes.
However, the plate umpire noticed pieces of cork among the shards of the shattered bat and he rightfully ejected Sosa from the game. Sosa acknowledged ownership of the bat explaining that he occasionally used it for batting practice and home, running exhibitions to entertain his fans. Major league baseball then confiscated and tested 76 of Sosa's other bats after his ejection and all were found to be clean with no cork. However, the crime had been committed and Sosa still had to serve a seven-game suspension.
3. Antonio Margarito, Loaded Gloves
For some boxers who hit hard, they say that they have dynamite in their hands in the case of Mexican boxer Antonio Margarito. Well, he had plastered on his hands before margarita was supposed to fight Shane Mosley for the WBA welterweight title in 2009. Mosley’s trainer noticed that Margarito's hands were wrapped strangely and asked for the wrap tape to be examined. The coach had a great eye and was right to be suspicious when Margarito's hand wraps were cut off. The match Officials found small knuckle pads made of plaster which is used to make casts. The purpose of the plaster was to add more damage to Margarito's opponent. The Mexican boxer said he was unaware of the paths and his coach took all the blame on himself. Margarito was forced to re-wrap his hands and would go on to lose the fight and the title to Mosley. After the match, he and his coach were suspended from boxing in the united states for one year.
4. Rosie Ruiz, Faking Victory
Chris Rock once joked about the marathon being too long saying that 28 miles are a long drive, let alone having to run the whole thing. Rosie Ruiz thought so too, but, unlike Chris rock, she wanted to win the 1980 Boston marathon. So what do you do if you want to win the longest racing event, but don’t want to run 28 miles and do it faster than everyone else? Well, you just start running close to the finish line and hope nobody notices, Rosie finished the 1980 Boston marathon with the official time of 2 hours, 31 minutes, and 56 seconds, which was the third-fastest time ever run by a woman. Even though the victory time of an unknown runner raised some suspicions, she was awarded the gold medal and got celebrated like a true champion. After a few days, several spectators came out and said that they saw Ruiz join the race about half a mile from the finish line because she was never seen by the other runners and didn’t appear in any photographs or footage of the race. It became apparent that she cheated they stripped the title away from Ruiz, but she didn’t receive any further penalties.
5. Diego Maradona's, Hand of God
Two of the most famous goals – Maradona ever scored happened in the same game during the 1986 world cup quarterfinals against England. The second one was an absolute stunner. When Diego took the ball in his half and dribbled past every defender in the goalkeeper. It was a genius goal from the best player in the world. The first goal he scored in that game was also genius but in an entirely different way. As the deflected ball was traveling through the air and into the hands of England's goalkeeper, the 5’5 Maradona somehow got it first and sent it to the back of the net. While the English players protested, the ref didn’t see that Maradona had flicked the ball with his hand, which ultimately helped Argentina win the game and proceed to the semi-finals. During the post-game interview, Diego cheekily said that if it was a handball, it was a hand of God.
6. Lance Armstrong, Steroids
Pane E Acqua is Italian for bread and water, and in cycling, it’s used to describe riders who were cycling, clean, and not using peds. Lance Armstrong was cycling on Pane E Acqua for the first part of the 90s, and he was a talented rider without a doubt, but he wasn’t achieving extraordinary results after he successfully won his battle with testicular cancer, Lance returned to cycling in 1998, but he didn’t use bread And water for fuel anymore, he had something much more potent lance started using Erythropoietin or EPO. In short, EPO stimulates the production of red blood cells and enables athletes to inject it to have more oxygen in their blood. More oxygen increases endurance, which is crucial for a sport like cycling.
Lance would go on to win seven Tour de France's in a row which is the hardest and most prestigious multiple-stage bicycle race in the world, even though the insiders knew he was cheating, Lance never failed a drug test which he gladly repeated at almost every interview. He had the best doctors who instructed him on how far from a race he can use peds to mask positive results, avoid being detected or avoid being tested in the first place. However, in 2013, after a massive investigation from USADA and testimony of many witnesses, including his former teammates Armstrong, was finally forced to admit he was doping throughout his career.
7. Dwight Howard, Stickum
Dwight Howard is now a role player whose NBA job is primarily to play defense and Get rebounds but some five to ten years ago he had a more prominent role in higher usage raid, even though he was never a good post player.
Howard would still demand the ball down low and to make it easier for himself to catch entry and lob passes. Dwight used Stickum. Stickum is an adhesive spray that enhances grip, which is pretty useful if you’re trying to catch balls and it’s illegal in both the NBA and the NFL. Dwight has been using it for years but in the game between his rockets and the hawks in 2016, he must have applied too much and the other players noticed something was weird with the ball. The refs intervened, paused the game, and came over to Houston's bench, where one Stickum can was visible treacherously, revealing why the ball was so sticky all of a sudden, the rockets were warned to stop using the spray, but neither the team nor Howard was penalized for the use of it.
8. Tonya Harding, hitman,
Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan were two of the best American figure skaters in the late 80s and early 90s. One day before the U.S national championship, which also served as the qualifiers for the 1994 Olympics Nancy Kerrigan, was brutally attacked after practice in Detroit, a man jumped at Kerrigan as she was heading to the locker room and beat her up with a club attempting to break her legs. Thankfully, she only suffered deep bruises and escaped with no broken bones, but still, she was unable to participate in the US nationals where Harding took the first place and a guaranteed spot in the Olympics.
After an FBI investigation into Harding’s bodyguard, Shawn Eckhart, and ex-husband Jeff Gillooly Eckhart buckled and admitted his involvement in the incident and organization of the attack with the attacker Shane Stant, Harding denied her involvement at first, even though her ex-husband pleaded guilty and testified against her just a few weeks before the Olympics, despite the scandal, there was not sufficient evidence of Harding’s involvement and she was allowed to compete in the Olympics together with Kerrigan and was also granted a spot in the most anticipated skating event ever in the United States, Kerrigan took home the silver medal, while Harding finished eighth due to skate malfunction. Upon her return, the case continued, and with testimonies, mounting against her Harding officially pleaded guilty. She received three years probation, a 160,000 dollar fine, and got banned from skating forever.
9. Mike Tyson was ear-biting,
Even though his first and most famous loss came against Buster Douglas in 1991. That happened because mike was barely practicing for the fight, but when Tyson first fought, Holyfield in 1996, Evander showed the world that Tyson could be beaten and pretty much dominated throughout the fight. Tyson immediately asked for a rematch and he got it simply because he was the biggest star in boxing at the time when the rematch started mike, simply didn’t have it in him and he knew it. He didn’t want to be in that ring on that night and with everything, he threw Holyfield had an answer for Tyson couldn’t exert dominance over his opponent plus.
He only had the stamina for about half the fight, knowing that he would lose in the later rounds, pissed at himself and the world due to a debauched lifestyle he was leading mike, couldn’t take it anymore. He was full of hate and he wanted to express it. But he couldn’t do it with his hands like he usually did with all of his opponents. So Tyson took a bite out of Evander's ear and bit off a piece of it. He was immediately disqualified, which was the beginning of the end of his storied career.
10. Tom Brady, Deflategate.
In 2006, the NFL changed the rule where the home team provided all the footballs for the game and instead enabled the away team to use their footballs on offense. In 2014, Tom Brady used this rule to his advantage in the AFC championship game against the Indianapolis colts and his quarterback rival Andrew Luck, while Luck was throwing balls that were per NFL rules inflated between 12.5 to 13.5 pounds per square inch, tom Brady deliberately ordered for his footballs to be slightly deflated by removing air from the football. It makes it easier to grip, throw and catch and thus gives an unfair advantage to the team that’s using deflated balls on offense after Brady threw an interception to colt’s linebacker Quell Jackson. The linebacker gave it to the equipment manager to keep as a souvenir and that’s when the trouble began. The colt’s equipment manager thought there was something weird with the ball and notified the league officials.
After examination, it was determined that 11 of the 12 balls the Patriots were using in the game were deflated and averaging around 1.5 pounds of pressure less than the minimum amount. The balls got re-inflated at half-time and the patriots turned their 10-point half-time lead into a 45-7 victory and advanced to the super bowl. Although the game was a blowout, even with all the balls equally inflated, the flight gate became a national scandal and Brady got suspended for four games, while the Patriots were fined millions of dollars and forfeited two future draft picks.