FALLEN cycling star Lance Armstrong has the field covered by the length of the straight when it comes to sport’s biggest cheating scandals.
Before he came clean in a 2013 interview with Oprah Winfrey, where he revealed years of systemic doping, Armstrong was regarded as one of the greatest athletes of all time after capturing seven Tour de France titles.
As Le Tour gets ready to pedal off for its 108th edition, we thought it was worth revisiting some of the most memorable scandals to rock world sport.
Armstrong is the undisputed world champion of cheats in sport.
The Texan was a global superstar before his world came crashing down.
He became a movement through his Livestrong charity.
You couldn’t have scripted his epic rise to glory on cycling’s biggest stage after his cancer battle in 1996.
Against all odds, he won the Tour de France in 1999, before making it a magnificent seven straight victories in 2005.
He retired at the age of 33 after his last Tour triumph.
He made a comeback a few years later, though not at the same level of dominance, and raced in a handful of big races before retiring again.
Armstrong was suspected of doping during his career, but he always strongly denied it.
That was until the Oprah interview.
Since then, Armstrong has been stripped of all honours, kicked off the global charity he launched, and admitted he starting taking performance-enhancing drugs at the age of 21.
It was seemed a story that seemed too good to be true. Ultimately, that’s how it turned out.
Hansie Cronje
THE South African was one of the most revered figures in world cricket before he succumbed to temptation.
The inspirational skipper, who averaged just more than with the bat in both Tests and one-dayers, admitted he took bribes from an Indian bookmaker to fix matches before his tragic death in a 2002 plane crash at the age of 32.
Cronje initially denied the fixing charges, but he confessed his role to an inquiry commission in South Africa and was later banned from the game for life.
Ben Johnson
AS a 15-year-old, I remember watching Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson shock the world when he gold in the 1988 Olympics men’s 100m final in Seoul.
His time of 9.79 seconds smashed the world record in a display of brute power against an all-star field, which included American favourite Carl Lewis and Briton Linford Christie.
But just 24 hours later he failed a drugs test when traces of a banned steroid were found in his urine and he was stripped of his gold medal.
He attempted a comeback but failed a drugs test again in 1993 and was rubbed out of the sport for good.
Fine Cotton affair
THIS was the race that stopped the nation for all the wrong reasons.
In what’s regarded as one of horse racing’s most amateurish, comical ring-ins, a struggling horse known as Fine Cotton was substituted in a 1984 Brisbane race for a nearly identical horse of much higher quality.
The idea was to enter the better horse into a lower-grade metropolitan race, hoping to win some quick cash by backing their “longshot”.
The substitute horse, Bold Personality, went on to win and land the plunge where the gelding had opened as a 33/1 roughie before firming to a 7/2 favourite at the jump.
But, cutting a long and farcical story short, the ruse was up when stewards realised the painted white marks on the horse’s hind legs had started to drip downwards.
Fine Cotton was immediately disqualified and eight people involved in the scam – including famous bookmakers Bill and Robbie Waterhouse – were given lifetime racing bans.
Rosie Ruiz
THE Cuban-American fraudster gets a guernsey in my top five for the sheer comic value of her cheating.
Ruiz literally came from nowhere to win the 1980 Boston Marathon in the third-fastest time recorded by a woman in a marathon.
However, suspicions about her victory arose immediately after spotters reported not seeing her at checkpoints along the 42.2km course.
Ruiz was stripped of her medal after witnesses came forward a few days later to say they’d seen her run on to the course from the sidelines less than 1km from the finish line.
Her earlier cheating in the 1979 New York Marathon to qualify for the Boston race was even more brazen.
It was later discovered she’d caught a train on the subway before sneaking on to the course about 1km from the finish to place 11th overall.
Your say: Who is in your top-5 biggest sporting cheats? Email your feedback to mtaylor@sunraysiadaily.com.au
Matt’s top-5 biggest cheating scandals in sport
1. Lance Armstrong (cycling)
2. Hansie Cronje (cricket)
3. Ben Johnson (athletics)
4. Fine Cotton affair (horse racing)
5. Rosie Ruiz (marathon)
