The Olympic’s Weirdest Scandals & Cheats

Ah the Olympics, where the world’s best and brightest come together and win by any means necessary. Some do it the old fashioned way by spending years honing their talent to a fine point, while others decide to use life hacks, otherwise known as fraud and cheating, to gain an edge. At the end of the day, it’s all about the win. Then you have the setup for the Olympics, which can be controversial all on its own. Countries will bend over backwards to host these events, even to the detriment of its local population. There’s even that one time dozens of pigeons immolated themselves to commemorate the opening of the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

This year the shadow of Covid-19 looms large over the Tokyo Olympics. The official website still lists the event as the 2020 Olympics, but as we’re all aware, 2020 ceased to exist in around February of that year. Should the event even go forward? Perhaps not? Let’s take a look at some of the most bizarre and weird Olympic scandals. I promised it in the title after all.

Double Act

You remember all those ridiculous 90s movies about the Olsen twins goofing around. Well in 1984, a real life version of that occurred when Puerto Rican athlete Madeline de Jesus injured herself during the long jump. Fortunately she had an identical twin in reserve, her sister Margaret, who she sent out to do the 4×400 meter relay. The chief coach of the Puerto Rican Olympics team discovered the ruse and pulled out the entire team. Personally I think he should have rolled the dice to see what would happen. You never know, these days all Olympics teams could be made up of twins in a Prestige-style scenario where after the games, the spare twin is dropped into a water tank and disposed of.

Horsing Around

During the 1896 Olympics at Athens, local boy Spiridon Belokas was ostensibly a marathon runner. Although it appears he’s more of an Olympic passenger as he spent a couple of miles of the course in a horse and carriage during the race. He came third, until his ridiculous plot came to light. We do not currently believe the horse was awarded the medal after it was stripped from Belokas.

Tunisian Trainwreck

Tunisia was not having a great time at the 1960 Rome games. Its Pentathlon team was having a rough time. First of all they lost a swimmer after they had to be saved by a lifeguard after struggling in the water. Nobody expected the lifeguard to be getting wet that day. THEN all three of its equestrian team fell off their horses. They did have one talented team member though, a fencer who was so good they sent him out all three times in place of his other two team members. They hoped that if he kept his mask on he’d remain a fencing wrecking ball man of mystery. Nobody bought it. They were disqualified.

Paralympic Intentional Injuries

This one isn’t for the squeamish. Paralympians have been known to injure themselves on purpose to raise natural adrenaline and blood flow. Brad Zdanivsky, a climber, would occasionally electrocute himself by “using an electrical stimulus on my leg, my toe and even my testicles”.

Tanni Grey-Thompson, a wheelchair racer, says she knows of an athelete who would tap a nail into his feet, and another who would break their toes with a hammer.

This is called boosting, and is generally painless for the participants, although no less dangerous as it would be for anyone else who would go around breaking their own toes. This adrenaline boost naturally occurs in able-bodied athletes, but is harder to achieve for people with paralysis. Apparently 17 per cent of 60 Paralympians surveyed in Beijing in 2008 admitted to the practice, numbers range and have been claimed to be as high as 30%, despite a ban on the practice.