- The stars of professional sports
are often people that we look up to.
So when it's discovered that they've cheated,
we get angry.
Throughout the history of both professional sports
and the Olympics, there have been a select
group of people who rose to the top,
became stars only to later be exposed
for not only breaking the rules of the game,
but for doing things that were highly illegal to get there.
So today, I'm going to tell you about 10 people
who made it to the top of their game,
what they ended up doing and how they ended up
falling from greatness.
These are the 10 worst cheaters in sports history.
Number 1 is Lance Armstrong.
Born on September 18th, 1971, former American professional
road cycling champion, Lance Armstrong
has accomplished a lot in his life.
Known as La Boss or Big Tex by his peers,
he battled stage three testicular cancer back in 1996,
won seven Tour de France Cycling Marathon
between 1999 and 2005 and even won a bronze medal
at the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics.
So you know, he's just a little accomplished.
However, as incredible as all of that is,
the hero that people saw in him faded rapidly
in January of 2013.
Just shortly after retiring from his cycling career,
he was investigated by the
United States Anti Doping Agency.
Their reports siting him as the ring leader
of an extremely sophisticated
and successful doping program,
not only involving himself but other cyclists as well.
But Armstrong chose not to fight the allegations
and instead decided to come clean about his drug use
in an interview with none other than Oprah Winfrey.
Armstrong ended up being stripped of all of his
Tour de France titles and was banned from any
sport regulated by the World Anti Doping Agency.
Number 2 are the Chicago White Sox.
Known as the Black Sox Scandal,
this next story of cheating rocked the city of Chicago
during the 1919 World Series of (Major League) Baseball.
After their five game to three defeat,
players from the Chicago White Sox were
actually accused of purposely throwing their games
against the Cincinnati Reds in order to collect bets
that they made with gamblers.
The plan to lose the series started as a protest
against the White Sox owner Charles Comiskey
who was wildly disliked due to his
underpaying of the team's players.
Yes they were under payed despite previously
winning the 1917 World Series
and being one of the best teams in the league.
In September of 1920, nearly a full year later,
a grand jury listened to the confessions of
pitcher Eddie Cicotte and outfielder Shoeless Joe Jackson.
And on October 22nd, 1920, eight players
were charged with conspiracy to defraud.
Interestingly because of this, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis
was appointed the first Commissioner of Baseball
in an effort to protect the sport's clean image
and he gave all eight players a lifetime ban from the sport.
Talk about taking a man's balls away from him.
Man, that's tough.
Number 3 is Sylvester Carmouche.
If you're thinking the only way to cheat
in a horse race is to force feed your stallion
horse steroids, think again.
As it turns out if the weather's just right,
you can win without racing at all.
That's exactly what happened on January 6th, 1990,
at the Delta Downs Racetrack in Vincent, Louisiana.
The entire track was engulfed in a thick fog
that made spectators unable to see
the jockey's or their horses.
So jockey Sylvester Sly Carmouche
and his horse Landing Officer
placed a distant first in the race,
ahead of everybody else.
The strange thing is no other jockey saw Carmouche pass.
What was even more odd is that Landing Officer
had only won 5 of his previous 53 races.
So something seemed a little fishy.
The track's veterinarian noticed that Landing Officer
didn't seem to be out of breath.
And had no dirt on his legs from running the race.
So he got a little suspicious.
As it turns out, he stayed in place while the others
raced around the track and had only pretended to win.
Because of this he was outed as a cheater
and was banned from racing for 10 years.
Number 4 is Rose Ruiz.
Marathons are super long so who can blame someone
who wants to get it over with quicker right?
Well, when you take shortcuts and then win,
that's when there's problem.
In 1980, Cuban born marathon Rosie Ruiz
won the 84th Boston Marathon by a large margin,
making her the female record holder
for the best time ever achieved.
But oddly and very suspiciously,
she wasn't even seen on the track by any of the personal
or other competitors throughout the race.
It was quickly discovered that Ruiz had cut off the track
and used a shorter route only to jump
back on the racetrack near the finish line.
But this wasn't even the first time
that she had done this.
She had used the same technique previously
in the New York City Marathon to qualify
for that race in Boston.
But during that race, she actually opted to take
the subway to the finish line.
Officials obviously caught her cheating
and she was stripped of her marathon title eight days later.
The award being given to the
people who came in second place.
Number 5 is Ben Johnson.
Born in Falmouth, Jamaica
but identified as a Canadian athlete,
Ben Johnson became a national sensation
after winning the gold medal in the 100 meter final
at the Seoul Summer Olympic Games on September 24th, 1988.
Johnson actually set a world record at the time
completing the race in just 9.79 seconds
and becoming the first Canadian athlete
to win the event since 1928.
Unfortunately just three days after the race,
the Olympic Doping Control Center reported
that Johnson's urine tested positive for anabolic steroids
and the world record win that he had was disqualified.
And on top of that, the records that he set
at the Olympics and at the 1987 World Championships
were both rescinded and he was suspended from the sport
until 1991.
Now you know, most times people would learn their lesson
from such an embarrassing event,
but not everybody's so smart.
On January 7th, 1993, he made a glorious comeback,
winning the 50 meter in Grenoble, France
but unbelievably once again he tested positive
for performance enhancing supplements.
Johnson was then banned from racing indefinitely.
Number 6 is Barry Bonds.
Born on July 24th, 1964, legendary former
Major League Baseball player Barry Bonds
was one of the sport's greatest athletes
with records for most home runs over all
and most home runs in a single season.
He stood second only to Babe Ruth
for the most career wins.
With amazing accomplishments like that,
it was tough for a lot of people
when they found out just how much of a cheater
the baseball icon was.
Back in 2000, Bonds was approached by Balco,
the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative
with an invention that they called the clear.
Oh, sounds safe and promising.
The thing is is that it was performance enhancing steroid
that was virtually undetectable by tests
administered at the time.
Not only did Bonds accept it, but went as far as to
connect the company with other sports stars
that would benefit from these enhancements.
But after an investigation that took place
between 2003 and 2007, Bonds was indicted on charges
of perjury and of obstruction of justice
after he lied to a grand jury
about accepting drugs from Balco.
Because of this, he has not entered into
the National Baseball Hall of Fame
even though he's been eligible for several years.
Number 7 is Marion Jones.
Born on October 12th, 1975, Marion Jones
is an American Track and Field athlete
who won two bronze medals and three gold medals
at the 2000 summer Olympic games in Sydney, Australia.
Going back all the way to her high school days
of track and field, Jones had been accused
many times of using performance enhancing substances
but managed to somehow avoid testing positive.
It wasn't until October 5th of 2007,
after a large scale investigation into Jones
and other high profile athletes
for using untraceable steroids,
that she announced her retirement from track and field
and admitted to using performance enhancing drugs
including steroids throughout her whole career.
The United States Anti Doping Agency
ended up stripping her of all titles and awards
that she received after September 1st of 2000.
And yes, this included all of her Olympic medals
and three other World Championship victories.
Number 8 is Tim Donaghy.
You don't have to be a player
or a coach to profit from cheating.
Sometimes even those that are officiating get to benefit.
Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy officiated 772
regular season games and 20 playoff games
in his 13 year long career in professional basketball.
Unfortunately none of that mattered through 2007
when the FBI investigated Donaghy on suspicions
that he bet 10's of thousands of dollars
on the games that he refereed.
As it turns out, he made bogus calls against players
in order to guarantee that he'd win himself
a nice little payday.
According to the reports, he had made some big connections
with individuals involved with organized crime
and made himself $2,000
for every single pick that he gave them.
Donaghy ended up resigning from the league
on July 9th, 2007 before the FBI reports were released.
And on August 15th, he pled guilty to charges
against him from the report.
After serving prison time, he released an autobiography
appropriately titled Personal Foul about his
betting scandal in the NBA.
Number 9 is Tonya Harding.
Sports man, they're wicked serious,
so serious in fact that some people will do anything to win,
even severely injure their opponents.
Or in the case of Tonya Harding,
have someone else injure them.
On January 6th, 1994, after a practice session
for the US Figure Skating Championships
in Detroit, Michigan, two-time Olympian figure skater
Tonya Harding had her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly
and bodyguard Shawn Eckhart hire a hit man
to attack her biggest competition Nancy Kerrigan
to break her right leg.
The hit man Shane Stant assaulted Kerrigan
with a police baton but managed to only
bruise her and failed to actually break any bones.
I've been hired to do a job, whackety whack.
Well that wasn't hard enough.
But regardless Kerrigan was forced to withdraw
from the competition allowing Harding to win first place.
But Kerrigan ended up recovering by the time
the winter Olympics took place
and took the silver medal while Harding only came in eighth.
But after the scandal was discovered,
for her role in the sabotage Harding
was given three years probation,
500 hours of community service and a whole lot of frowns.
She was also stripped of her 1994 US Championship title
and was banned for life from professional figure skating.
And number 10 is the Spanish Paralympic Team.
And now for the grand master of cheating scandals.
In what is truly an offensive and disgusting move,
the Spanish Intellectually Disabled Basketball team
at the 2000 Sydney Summer Paralympic games
was made up of individuals who weren't disabled at all.
The basketball team won the gold medal in their sport,
defeating the non cheating Russian team.
Prior to the games, the team was not given
any medical tests to prove their eligibility.
But provided medical evaluations that had been forged
and given to them by Fernando Martin Vincenti,
the then head of the Spanish Federation
for Medically Handicapped Sports.
The scandal ended up being discovered
because after the picture of the
gold medal team was released,
people who knew some of the athletes
came forward revealing that they were not disabled.
Yes I know Jose, he no mentally challenged,
he's stupid but he no mentally challenged.
It was later concluded that 10 out of the 12 men
on the team had no mental handicap whatsoever.
But the fraud didn't end there because it also included
Spain's table tennis, track and field, and swimming teams
who won five medals.
It was believed that they all intentionally signed up
in order for Spain to gain more Olympic team sponsorships.
So those were the 10 biggest cheaters in sports history.
But as always, I wanna know from you
is there someone else that you think
deserves to be on this list?
Leave your response below and I'll be reading through them
and I'll pin the best comment to the top.
If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check out
my friend Mike Korzemba's channel by pressing
or clicking the thumbnail to the right of your screen now.
He makes incredible videos about not only NBA conspiracies
but more that'll really make you think including
his new video The Four Worst Scandals in NBA History.
Make sure you check out him out and tell him I sent you
and I will see you next time.