Worst sports cheating scandals

01

Bloodgate

A physio bit open a fake blood capsule on the sideline so a player could be illegally swapped out. The capsule left red stains on his teeth. The entire scheme unraveled in 22 minutes.

02

Michelle Smith

Irish swimmer Michelle Smith's urine sample at a 1998 drug test contained enough whiskey to kill a person. She was banned four years — not for doping, but for tampering. Her three Olympic golds remain official.

03

Frederick Lorz

Fred Lorz crossed the 1904 Olympic marathon finish line to cheers, waved at crowds, and posed for photos before admitting he'd hitched a car ride for 11 of the 26 miles.

04

Operación Puerto doping case

Spanish police raided a Madrid clinic and found 200 blood bags labeled with cyclist codenames — 'Valv. Piti,' 'Birillo' — stored for transfusion during the Tour de France. The bags named half the peloton.

05

Rosie Ruiz

Rosie Ruiz received the 1980 Boston Marathon women's trophy having run roughly one mile — emerging from a subway crowd near the finish. She never sweated, and no one had seen her on the course.

06

Tim Donaghy

NBA referee Tim Donaghy bet on games he was assigned to officiate, then fed picks to a mob-connected gambler. He called 3–4 more fouls per game when he had money on the line.

07

Hansie Cronje

South Africa's most beloved cricket captain Hansie Cronje confessed he fixed matches partly for a leather jacket. The man who led his country's post-apartheid sporting resurrection died in a plane crash two years later.

08

Black Sox Scandal

Eight Chicago White Sox players were paid by gamblers to lose the 1919 World Series — then played the following full season undetected. Shoeless Joe Jackson, who batted .375 in the fixed series, was banned for life.

09

Festina affair

A Festina team car was stopped at the French border carrying 400 doping products — EPO, growth hormone, testosterone — in a cooler. The soigneur driving it had already tried to flee.

10

Houston Astros sign stealing scandal

Houston Astros players watched a live camera feed of the catcher's signals and banged a trash can once or twice to tell batters what pitch was coming. They won the World Series doing it.