Is there anything more scandalous in the world of sport than when a superstar athlete gets caught cheating? From doping to ball tampering, they always think they can get away with it, right up until their dirty deeds are exposed for all the world to see! Let's explore some athletes who got caught cheating.
Diego Maradona And The Hand Of God
Soccer is often called The Beautiful Game, although it's unlikely that England fans felt that way after the 1986 World Cup quarter finals! In what soon became the most infamous match in history, England got ready to face off against Argentina on the pitch. The first half of the match passed without any goals at all. But suddenly Argentina’s Captain, Diego Maradona, skipped past three England players, slid into their box, and knocked the ball into the goal.
Maradona 'Hand of God' Goal 1986 World Cup by ClassicEngland From afar, it looked like he’d used his head to bounce the ball in, and his freewheeling celebration certainly sold it as a legitimate goal. But the referee failed to spot that Maradona had actually used his hand to punt the ball in, which is an obviously illegal move! Astoundingly though, there were no yellow cards, no penalties, and the goal was considered valid! The match continued like nothing had happened, and while Maradona went on to score another, more legal, goal, England ended up losing by just one.
After the match, Maradona audaciously admitted that the goal was scored “a little with the head of Maradona, and a little with the
hand of god”. This left England fans understandably frustrated, but with no punishment ever levied against him, it cemented Maradona’s reputation as a soccer legend! Argentina went on to win the 1986 World Cup, but Maradona sadly passed away in 2020. Hopefully, he was welcomed into heaven by the hands of god!
Bryan Carrasco Punches Himself With Opponent's Hand
Desperate times call for desperate measures. But even with that considered, soccer player Bryan Carrasco went to some disastrously desperate depths back in 2011! During the South American Under 20’s World Cup qualifier between Chile and Ecuador, the Chilean defender pulled a stunt that will go down in history for all the wrong reasons! With just 14 minutes of the match left, Chile was losing 1-0 and defending against a throw that was deep in their own half.
It wasn’t looking good for Chile, but instead of using his head, Carrasco decided to use his arm, or, more specifically, the arm of his opponent. As the throw was being lined up, Carrasco suddenly grabbed Ecuadorian forward Edson Montaño’s hand and flung it into his own face!
Chile Player Punches Himself In The Face With Opponents Hand! by Brendan Bennett After dramatically rolling about on the floor, the referee saw the imagined infraction and awarded a free kick to Chile! Somehow, Carrasco’s pathetic ploy had worked! But unfortunately for him, every second of his dumb charade was caught on camera, and it was replayed over and over on TV while the commentators rightfully laughed at him.That’s a handy stunt even Maradona would be proud of! Ultimately,
this theatrical attempt at cheating was all in vain. Chile missed their free kick, and Ecuador triumphed over them 1 nil. But for that performance, you have to give Carrasco a hand, as long as it’s not Montaño’s!
Shahid Afridi's Ball-Tampering
Playing sport can really work up your appetite, but that didn’t excuse Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi’s actions out on the pitch back in 2010. In the final throws of Pakistan’s One Day International game against Australia, Team Captain Afridi was looking down the barrel of a big loss. So, to make sure his bowler had a better grip on the ball, Afridi decided to scuff it and give his team an edge.
But he didn’t subtly dig his nails into it, or scratch at it with something in his pocket. Instead, the cameras caught him chomping down on that big hard ball like it was some sort of apple! His baffling biting behavior caught the attention of umpires immediately, but Afridi claimed he’d just been sniffing it. Does someone want to tell Afridi that, traditionally, you smell with your nose, not your teeth!
Shahid Afridi ball tampering bitng the ball by cheatistan With the video ref replay firmly against him, he eventually admitted to ball tampering. While almost every cricketer is guilty of scuffing the ball in one way or another, ball tampering like this is expressly forbidden by the International Cricket Council Code of Conduct. As such, Afridi was hit with a
hefty two-match ban. Hopefully, that was enough time for him to fill up on food, so he won’t resort to snacking down on his cricket equipment again!
Patrick Reed's Two-Stroke Penalty
When it comes to golf, most people think the sport’s biggest cheater is Tiger Woods, but that’s the wrong kind of cheating! Out on the green, that title sits firmly in the hands of Patrick Reed.
The 2018 Masters Champion first came under fire during the 2019 Hero World Challenge, when his ball got stuck in a sand bunker. All golf fans know that these shots are a real pain to hit because of their awkward angle! Stuck in this sandy situation, Reed decided to test out a variety of clubs. But the camera’s caught him sneakily shifting sand out the way with each swing, giving him a cleaner shot!
Patrick Reed's two-stroke penalty at Hero World Challenge 2019 by PGA TOUR
It’s illegal to even ground the club like this on a practice swing, never mind shift entire sandcastles worth of sand out the way! Thankfully, he got what he deserved; not only was he given a two-stroke penalty, but his ball rolled over and off the green, talk about a stroke of karma. Although, his cheating streak didn’t end there. In the 2020 US open, he was caught patting down the rough around his ball to improve his shot! As previously mentioned, grounding the club like this is just not allowed. And what’s even more embarrassing is that, once again, the cheat didn’t improve his game! His seven-over-par performance lost him the top spot, all while he was being called out as a serial cheater online! You’d think that’d be enough for him to learn his lesson, right? How wrong you are! As recently as March 2021, at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, spectators were quick to pick up on Reed fiddling and moving the grass behind his ball at the 17th hole.
While no penalty strokes or actions were levied against him, angry fans sent out a flurry of irate tweets questioning exactly what he thought he was doing! It looks like this serial golf cheater is trying to give Tiger Woods a run for his money.
Valentino Rossi Kicks Marc Marquez Off His Bike
In the high-speed world of Grand Prix Motorcycle racing, there are few rivalries as spicy as the one between Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi. These two-tired titans have been clashing since 2015, where they’ve battled it out at speeds of over 200 miles per hour on tracks all over the world. But their ramped-up rivalry reached a real boiling point during the 2015 Malaysian Grand Prix!
As Marquez was getting ready to overtake Rossi on a corner of the 13th lap, the two came within touching distance of one another. But, all of a sudden, Marquez’s bike dipped and crashed, careering him off the track! Fortunately, he walked away uninjured, but Marquez claimed Rossi had purposefully kicked his bike, and the video replay seemed to back his story up!
Valentino Rossi Kicks Marc Marquez Off His Bike - Malaysian Grand Prix 2015 by Lamborghini vs Ferrari 9-time world title champion Rossi adamantly denied the allegation, although he did admit to riding wide on the corner to try and slow Marquez up. After reviewing the footage, the judges sided with Marquez and slapped a
3-point penalty on Rossi, forcing him to start at the back of the grid in the next race. Rossi later accused Marquez of lying to give another of his teammates on the track a winning advantage, but Marquez claimed Rossi kicked him over to take the title!
Deflategate Scandal
Despite what you may think, the largest scandal to rock the world of American football in the last decade wasn’t to do with steroids or doping, but with the footballs themselves! Though it actually all started back in 2006.
This is when New England Patriots Quarterback, Tom Brady, proposed a new rule to the NFL; that the teams should be allowed to provide their own balls. Tom argued every team liked differently pressurized balls, as he himself found a slightly softer ball was easier to catch and throw. Because teams always use their own balls when they’re on offense, this new rule seemed innocent enough. But following a championship game against the Indiana Colt’s in 2015, which the Patriots won 45-7, the Colt’s noticed that the Patriots’ ball felt strangely flat. NFL officials took a look and discovered that, not only was the ball inflated below standard, but a shocking 11 of the Patriot’s 12 balls did not meet their minimum criteria! One was even a whopping 2 lbs of pressure short!
These softer, easier to catch balls had given the Patriots an unfair advantage in their offense. But strangely, all these balls had been checked by officials at the beginning of the game! An NFL investigation was launched and discovered that members of the Patriots' locker room staff likely deflated their footballs on purpose after they’d been checked by the officials! But it appeared Tom Brady knew about this, or, even worse, it had been done on his instruction.
The NFL slapped Brady with a 4-game suspension without pay, and the Patriots were fined a whopping $1 million! Brady immediately appealed his suspension, which looked like it was going to be overturned, but then he did something so suspicious that it was almost impossible to think he was innocent.
On the day he was due to meet with investigators,
he had his cell phone destroyed. 4 months of potentially incriminating messages and data were irretrievably lost, and despite Brady’s numerous excuses, the courts upheld his suspension. Brady continued to fight the ban, but all his petitions were denied. While he’s never admitted to the allegations, we can only hope he’ll eventually come to grips with the truth, as well as a properly pumped-up ball!
Hippolyte Acoutourier
When it comes to crowning the ultimate cycling cheater, you might think that Lance Armstrong wins by a mile. But the astounding antics of one Hippolyte Acoutourier make Armstrong look like a total amateur!
When the very first Tour de France started in 1903, almost every competitor cheated. Not by something as basic and boring as doping, but by inventing incredible, mind boggling cheats! Competitors laced each other’s shorts with itching powder, they showered the roads with broken glass to slow their rivals down, and even hired thugs to beat up opponents mid race!
But Hippolyte beat them all when it came down to sheer creativity. Looking like a stereotypical vaudevillian from an old cartoon, he himself fell victim to a cheat in 1903 when another cyclist spiked his bottle of lemonade! But when he tried again in 1904, he had his own cheat up his sleeve, or in his teeth. At one point in the race, he was spotted trailing swiftly behind the leading car, but a little too swiftly. Looking closer, spectators saw Hippolyte was holding a cork in his mouth that was attached to the car by a length of thread! For miles he was towed along like this, leaving his competitors in the dust! And he would have gotten away with it, if only the car hadn’t been going so fast! He reached the finish line so suspiciously quickly that he was eventually disqualified!
Emily Clark, The Serial Marathon Cheater
When Emily Clark finished second in the 2019 Apple Tree Half Marathon in Vancouver, officials were quick to congratulate her!
71873651 2378472715753794 4241288403892568064 n by Marathon Investigation But as other female racers began crossing the line, they were all confused, because none of them had seen Clark pass them at any point. Concerned, they began checking official race photos, and sure enough, none of them showed Clark among the fastest women at any point in the race, except at the end! They confronted Clark with the evidence, but she boldly denied that she’d cheated. It was then that the race organization's President stepped forward and said that she’d seen Clark riding a bike during the race with her own two eyes! Even with this indisputable accusation against her, Clark doubled down and claimed that it must have been her twin sister riding the bike.
As you can probably guess, officials did some digging and revealed Clark had no twin sister, or integrity, at that! Eventually, she confessed to course cutting and apologized, before also confessing to cutting corners in at least 5 other races over the years! Happy with the admission and apology, race officials decided to drop the matter. But the drama didn’t end there! Just a few hours later, Clark had the audacity to post this on her Instagram stories, claiming she’d actually been disqualified because of her build!
Infuriated, investigators kept close tabs on her, and finally caught her red-handed, or technically, red-footed, during the Chicago Marathon just three weeks later. She’d finished in under 4 hours, but just one look at her time splits revealed that she’d brazenly cut the course yet again! She started off running at a regular 12.16 minutes a mile, but between the 25 k and 30 k markers, she suddenly started doubling her pace, running at a staggering 6.13 minutes a mile. So, after running an exhausting 25 kilometers, she’d either found the energy to sprint like Usain Bolt on steroids, or she’d skipped out on parts of the course. With the evidence piled against her,
she was disqualified from the marathon and hasn’t run in any officiated events since. For all the corners she cut, it looks like she still couldn’t out-run the truth!
Marion Jones Doping Scandal
After the 2000 Summer Olympics, Marion Jones quickly became an American household name. The track-and-field athlete left the competition eating her dust in not one, not two, but five events! This made her the first female track-and-field athlete to win a phenomenal five medals at a single Olympics!
2000 Sydney - Finale 100m (disqualification de Marion JONES pour dopage) by Héritage des Jeux Although, it hadn’t been easy. Jones had been competing internationally since she was 12 years old. But ever since she missed a random drug test in high school, she’d been hounded by allegations that she used illegal, performance-enhancing drugs. Though none of the tests she did take ever came back positive. And she was so against them that, in her autobiography, she blamed the breakup of her marriage to coach C.J. Hunter on the fact he wouldn’t stop taking steroids! But in 2004, Jones fell from grace when the corrupt head of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative admitted to supplying her with performance-enhancing drugs before, during, and after the Olympics. Not only that, he claimed he’d even watched her inject them!
Initially, Marion denied everything, but karma came knocking when her ex-husband, C.J. Hunter, claimed he’d also seen Jones inject herself with the drugs! Then in 2007, after years of allegations and investigations, Jones finally admitted to lying to federal agents about taking illegal substances prior to the Olympics.
2007: Marion Jones admits to doping by HLN She was forced to return all her medals, her tainted records were erased, and she was given a
6-month prison sentence for lying under oath.
Boris Onischenko And The Most Infamous Cheat In Olympic History
In the Olympics, one of the toughest events an athlete can compete in is the modern pentathlon. These competitors must swim, shoot, run, horse ride, and fence to the very best of their abilities in order to bring back the gold. But at the 1976 Olympics, Soviet World Champion Boris Onishchenko dared to try a different approach.
During the fencing event, which was a one touch épée tournament, Onishchenko faced off against Britain’s Adrian Parker. The slim swords were designed to electronically register a hit if their tips encountered more than just 750 grams of force. But when Onischenko lunged and missed parker, it registered a hit anyway!
The fight was over, but Parker protested to the judges that he hadn’t been hit! Confused, they inspected Onishchenko’s sword, though nothing seemed wrong. So, putting the complaint down to Parker’s want of a win, Onischenko was declared victorious.
But then he went on to face ex-army sergeant Jim Fox, and the same thing happened again! As the score board lit up with points in Onishchenko’s favor, Fox cried foul. By this point, the judges must’ve assumed the Brits were just having a good old moan, but a closer inspection of Onishchenko’s épée revealed a shocking discovery! The wires of his épée had been illegally modified to include a small, subtle switch! When Onishchenko hit the switch with his fingers, it closed the circuit and mimicked a hit, without the sword ever needing to touch his opponent.
The most devious cheat in Olympic Games history? | Strangest Moments by Olympics Onischenko was immediately
disqualified from the competition, which forced the Soviet Union to withdraw completely from the team event! Guess he turned out to be Dis-Onishchenko!
North Korean Olympic Cheat
The 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics was full of unbelievable displays, like the incredible opening ceremony, and the shattering of more than 10 world records. But it was North Korea’s blatant attempt at cheating that really stole the spotlight!
During the men’s 500-meter speed skating trials, 16-year-old Jong Kwang Bom, who hailed from the mysterious hermit kingdom, stepped up to the starting line. He had the inside track, along with a small army of cheerleaders rooting for him, so he appeared to have the upper hand in the race.
He readied himself, the gun went off, and then Jong face-planted hard into the ice! But moments later, the naughty North Korean flung his hand out and grabbed the skate of his Japanese rival, Ryosuke Sakazume, in an attempt to send him crashing as well!
North Korean Olympic Speed Skater Intentionally TRIPS Opponent After Falling to the Ice by The Fumble Unlucky for him, the split-second decision was caught on camera and broadcast for the entire world to see. Despite the dirty tactic, Jong was given the benefit of the doubt and the race was restarted. But the second time around, he seemed to purposefully bump into the Japanese skater before tumbling and crashing into the outside wall.
Kwang Bom Jong Winter Olympics 2018|| by TRENDS CLUB This strange attempt at sabotage ended up costing Jong his qualification into the next heat, but the Olympic judges
disqualified him for his unsportsmanlike behavior all the same! I don’t know how they train their skaters in North Korea, but they could certainly do with a few lessons in subtlety!
Mike Tyson Eat Bite
Most people know Mike Tyson for being the youngest heavyweight boxing champion in the world, or for his huge facial tattoo! But there’s another, much more infamous reason why people remember Tyson’s name.
Back in 1997, Tyson went toe-to-toe with Evander Holyfield, and in the second round, Holyfield heat-butted Tyson. The illegal move looked like an accident, but it enraged Tyson to the point of no return. In the third round, he spat out his mouthguard and, during a struggle,
bit a chunk out of Holyfield’s right ear!
Mike Tyson Bites Holyfields Ear Clean Off by BoxingNews Obviously, biting is an illegal move in almost all sports, with the exception of competitive eating! But with camera’s broadcasting their every move to nearly 2 million people watching at home, it was a stunningly dumb move. Though Holyfield was in a lot of pain, the doctor said he could continue, and the ref decided to dock Tyson two points for his cannibalistic counterattack. The round resumed even as the crowds started writing Tyson off though he wasn’t done yet! Twisted together in another struggle, Tyson reached forward and unbelievably bit Holyfield’s other ear! Holyfield was furious, and with ten seconds left in the third round, Tyson was finally disqualified. Not only that, but the savage stunt saw Tyson’s boxing license revoked, and landed him with a phenomenal fine of $3 million. You can say Mike showed the world that if you can’t beat ‘em, just eat ‘em!
If you were amazed at these athletes caught cheating, you might want to read
part 1. Thanks for reading!
