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Cheating scandals throughout the Olympics’ 130-year history highlight how the pursuit of victory can often conflict with Olympic values

The Olympic motto, chosen by the father of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin, expresses the aspirations of the Games in competition and in morality. However, as the many cheating scandals throughout the 130-year history of the Games have shown, the pursuit of victory can often conflict with the effort to maintain the perceived values of the

On Jan. 15, after an 11-month investigation, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation announced an for two coaches and an equipment manager from Norway’s ski jump team after they were caught on video manipulating the suits of jumpers following inspection at the Nordic World Ski Championships. Although the two skiers whose suits were manipulated—reigning Olympic champion Marius Lindvik and 2018 silver medalist Johann André Forfang—will still compete, it has cast a cloud over the event just weeks before the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies in Italy on Feb. 6.

Jared Bahir Browsh is theÌýCritical Sports StudiesÌýprogram director in the Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulderÌýDepartment of Ethnic Studies.

Cheating is as old as sport, and much like at , athletes and their coaches have been willing to bend—or break—the rules to gain an advantage for the sake of Olympic glory. The biggest scandals are often followed by rule changes and more intense oversight by the International Olympic Committee and sport officials.

Hitchhiking and strychnine at the 1904 marathon

The 1904 Games in St. Louis is rightfully considered . Though Chicago unanimously won the bid to become the first U.S. host of the Olympics, politicking by the Amateur Athletic Union, the postponement of the World’s Fair to 1904 and opposition to an led to the Games being transferred to St. Louis.

At the time, St. Louis was about a third the size of Chicago and offered fewer transportation options, leading to decreased participation Also, the associated World’s Fair focused heavily on white supremacy and imperialism, which was reflected in the disorganized Games.

One of the most famous examples of the poorly executed Games was the marathon, which was filled with cheating, scientific misinformation andthat was associated with the World’s Fair. The length and difficulty of the marathon has , but the marathon in St. Louis was especially controversial.

The 1904 event, which began in the middle of the afternoon as temperatures soared past 90, saw only 14 of the 32 two runners finish the race, including Len Taunyane (ninth) and Jan Mashiani (12th), two members of South Africa’s Tswana tribe who were included in the race to prove white superiority, coming to St. Louis as a part of the . They were the only Black South Africans to represent their country until 1992.

James E. Sullivan, who organized much of the 1904 Olympics, also wanted to prove that dehydration improved performance and had only one water station on the entire route. American runner Frederick Lorz began to cramp and dropped out of the race, soliciting a ride from a local driver. When the car broke down, Lorz finished the route and walked into the stadium, celebrating as the winner before a spectator revealed he had hitched a ride. Another American runner, Thomas Hicks, crossed the finish line more than 20 minutes later, boosted by after his own brush with dehydration. The chaotic race almost led to the elimination of the marathon from the Olympic program.

The straight dope

Thomas Hicks (center) crossed the finish line of the 1904 Olympic marathon with the help of strychnine sulfate and brandy, after a brush with dehydration. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

As the 1904 marathon debacle shows, some athletes will risk their health if a substance, including poison or liquor, can give them an edge. Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson may be the most famous individual example of performance-enhancing drug use at the Olympics—disqualified after testing positive for steroids at the 1988 Seoul Games following a world record-setting performance in the 100-meter dash. Carl Lewis, who placed second, was awarded the gold medal after Johnson was disqualified. Johnson had also tested positive for stimulants at the U.S. Olympic Trials, .

The United States was again embroiled in a doping scandal in 2007 when sprinter Marion Jones admitted to steroid use as a and was stripped of her medals from the 2000 Sydney Games. Cyclist Lance Armstrong was stripped of his bronze from the 2000 Games as well.

However, the largest doping scandal spans more than 74 years, after the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) joined the Olympic Movement in 1952. The Soviet Union's promotion of communism put the nation at odds with capitalist nations—specifically with fellow superpower the United States—making the The USSR was at odds with many Western countries as the Soviet Union’s athletes were given nominal jobs within the Soviet government, allowing them to train and compete full time through their athletic primes. This often led to competitions between older Soviet and much younger amateur athletes.

It was later revealed many of these athletes were also involved in state-sponsored doping programs, with Soviet labs working to stay a step ahead of testing, especially after testing for steroids began in 1976. In spite of this, East Germany, which had its own doping program, placed second in gold medals at the 1976 games in Montreal, motivating the Soviets to accelerate their own doping program for the , although they boycotted the latter.

The same doctor who signed off on the Soviet doping program for the 1984 Games, Dr. Sergei Portugalov, was instrumental in renewing the state-sponsored doping program through at least 2008, when seven runners from Russia were banned from competing at the 2008 Beijing Games. In 2017, Portugalov was permanently banned from working with athletes by the while Russia was banned from the Olympics for doping from 2019-2023. Russian athletes were allowed to compete under the Olympic Flag—as they did in 2024 and will in 2026, the result of a separate ban related to the

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For many years, Soviet athletes (here entering the opening ceremony of the 1964 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo) fought proxy Cold War battles with western nations in the Olympics. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Conspiring for glory

As enforcement has intensified, efforts to cheat have become more complex, with multinational conspiracies behind more recent controversies. The most famous of these efforts occurred during the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, which was already clouded in controversy after it was revealed in 1998 that the Salt Lake Organizing Committee had bribed Olympic officials to obtain the bid. Although other bid processes have faced claims of bribery, this was considered the largest corruption scandal in IOC history, prompting an .

During the pairs figure skating competition, Canadians Jamie Salé and David Pelletier performed a near-flawless routine but were awarded silver due to a 5-4 split among judges that favored Russian competitors Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze. t that she was pressured by the head of the French skating federation, Didier Gailhaguet, to give the Russian pair favorable marks in exchange for Russian support for French ice dancers Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat, who were scheduled to compete later in the Games and ultimately won gold.

Judged sports like gymnastics and figure skating have long faced criticism over their judges, especially during the Cold War, when there were frequent claims of bias for either . Le Gougne eventually recanted her story, but the damage was already done and Salé and Pelletier were eventually named gold medalists alongside Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze, who kept their gold. The incident led the International Skating Union to implement a new system to score performances in an effort to limit impropriety in judging.

Typically, when Olympians cheat, they cheat to win, but the 2012 London Games saw several badminton teams take a different approach. After securing a place in the knockout stage in women’s badminton doubles, two South Korean pairs, along with a pair from China and one from Indonesia, in their last group stage match to obtain a preferred matchup in the next round. All four teams were disqualified for uncompetitive behavior and future tournaments included another draw for runners-up from each group. Some countered that even though they tried to lose matches on purpose, their intent was to win the tournament.

As the common saying goes, which is often quoted after a cheating scandal. However, as the incidents involving the Russian Olympic Committee and others have shown, many of these incidents go beyond mere rule breaking and risk the health and well-being of the athletes involved. The IOC tries to remain free of controversy, but as we have seen across the 130 years of the modern Olympics, the organization is not immune to , socioeconomics or human nature. Athletes and even entire federations are so tempted by Olympic glory that they are willing to bend sporting ethics for the sake of winning.

Jared Bahir BrowshÌýis an assistant teaching professor ofÌýcritical sports studiesÌýin the Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulderÌýDepartment of Ethnic Studies.

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