The sword that scored on its own
Boris Onischenko, an army officer from Ukraine, entered the 1976 Olympics in Montreal a respected modern pentathlete who had won a silver medal in Munich four years earlier. He exited the Games in disgrace, with banner headlines around the world denouncing him as 'Disonischenko' and 'Boris the Cheat'.Modern pentathlon is a five-discipline event that includes fencing, but Onischenko's épée was not the innocent weapon of competition it appeared. He had wired his sword so that he could trigger the eletronic scoring system with his hand and register a hit at will.
The British team, who were to win the gold medal, were the first to suspect that Onischenko was up to something during his bout against Adrian Parker. When Jim Fox, Onischenko's next opponent, protested vehemently that his opponent was managing to score without hitting him, officials took away the Soviet athlete's sword. He continued with a replacement weapon, but soon afterwards news came through that he had been disqualified. Stories that he was later banished to the Siberian salt mines were probably exaggerated. The rules of the sport were changed, though, banning grips that could hide wires or switches.
2 Chicago White Sox baseball team
Throwing the 1919 World Series
It became known as the Black Sox scandal after eight Chicago White Sox were charged with accepting money from gamblers to throw the 1919 World Series, won 5-3 by the Cincinnati Reds. The gamblers, including former boxing champion Abe Attell, promised $100,000 to eight Sox players, and the following year a Chicago grand jury convened to investigate the case. Some of the eight, including 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson, confessed to the jury. They had been told no action would be taken against them, but were immediately suspended. On their way out, a young boy is said to have called out to Jackson: 'Say it ain't so, Joe.' (The phrase become one of the most famous in American sporting history, though Jackson later claims the incident never happened.) In June 1921, just before the jury trial was due to begin, the players' testimony mysteriously disappeared and they were acquitted due to lack of evidence. But Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a former federal court judge who was installed as an all-powerful baseball commissioner, upheld the suspensions, declaring: 'Regardless of the verdict of juries... no player that sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers... will ever play professional baseball.'
3 Diego Maradona
The Hand of God
As the England goalkeeper Peter Shilton and the Argentine captain Diego Maradona converged on Jorge Valdano's cross in the 52nd minute of their quarter-final at the 1986 World Cup finals, the game's goalless scoreline seemed secure. Maradona was, after all, a mere 5ft 4in, eight inches shorter than Shilton, who reached out with his right arm to punch the ball clear. Miraculously, or so it seemed, the leaping Maradona managed to guide the ball into the England net. Tunisian referee Ali Bennaceur, well placed to spot any infringement, ignored the protests of England's defenders that Maradona had handled the ball. He didn't even bother to consult his Bulgarian linesman, Bogdan Dotschev. But the slow-motion replay and, more tellingly, a still picture taken by a Mexican photographer showed that Maradona's left hand had deftly deflected the ball home. 'It was partly the hand of Maradona,' the Argentine said the next day, 'and partly the hand of God.' Later in the game Maradona scored a goal of unimpeachable brilliance as Argentina won 2-1 - and went on to win the World Cup.
4 Ben Johnson
Awesome Olympic champion - until his drug test caught up with him
'I'd like to say my name is Benjamin Sinclair Johnson Jnr and this world record will last 50 years, maybe 100.' So said Ben Johnson after trimming four-hundredths of a second off the world record to finish first in the 100 metres at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. Within hours, though, his triumph was transmuting into one of the great Olympic scandals. In the Olympic Doping Control Centre, less than half a mile from where Johnson had received his gold medal, Dr Park Jong-Sei found that one of the numbered urine samples taken from the first four finishers contained stanozolol, a dangerous anabolic steroid. The number was Johnson's, confirming the suspicions of one American trainer, who had noted before the race that the Canadian's eyes were yellow, the result, he said, of 'his liver working overtime processing steroids'. Carl Lewis, Britain's Linford Christie and Calvin Smith were each promoted one place to fill the final medal positions as the disgraced Johnson, stripped of his gold, flew out of Seoul, feebly protesting his innocence. Johnson raced at the next Olympics after serving a two-year suspension, but was banned for life in 1993 after he tested positive again.
5 David Robertson
Transgressing golf's code of self-regulation
Golf prides itself on its culture of honesty and self-regulation, which makes the case of David Robertson, a former Scottish boys champion, all the more remarkable. Robertson was playing in final qualifying for the 1985 Open in Deal, Kent, and after 14 holes, his playing partners summoned an official and (according to a newspaper), 'after a long discussion Simmers [the official, Graeme] disqualified Robertson for not replacing his ball in the correct position on the green'. It was reckoned that, at times, he had moved his ball up to 20 feet. He did this by arriving at the green first, appearing to mark his ball, but merely picking it up and then carrying his marker on his putter around the green and dropping it much nearer the hole. He was fined £20,000 and banned for 20 years from playing as a pro by the PGA European Tour. The fine was never called in. Seven years later Robertson applied for and obtained his amateur status back and played in some amateur events in the Lothian region.
6 Fred Lorz
Marathon champion who travelled by car
The marathon at the St Louis Olympic Games of 1904 was held over a hilly course in the middle of a scorching afternoon. Small wonder only 14 of the 32 starters made it to the finish. First home, after three hours 13 minutes, was a New Yorker, Fred Lorz, who was immediately proclaimed the winner. He had already been photographed with Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of the President of the United States, and was about to be awarded the gold medal, when word got out that he had covered 11 miles as the passenger in a car. The crowd's acclaim rapidly turned to abuse. Although Lorz claimed it was a practical joke, he received a lifetime ban, which was later lifted. Thomas Hicks, an English-born American who was awarded the race, might have been disqualified himself after his handlers gave him strychnine and brandy to keep him going.
7 Sylvester Carmouche
Jockey who ensured that punters didn't have the foggiest
On a foggy afternoon, a real pea-souper, in January 1990, Sylvester Carmouche surprised punters at Louisana's Delta Downs Racetrack by finishing first on 23-1 long-shot Landing Officer. But all was not as it seemed. Carmouche had dropped out of the mile-long race while lost from view and then rejoined the field as they came round again before galloping to 'victory'. He should have waited a little longer. The fact that he won by 24 lengths and came within 1.2sec of the track record inevitably raised suspicions. The stewards disqualified him even though he protested his innocence. Later he received a 10-year ban after the other jockeys in the race testified that Carmouche had not passed them.
Eventually he admitted to what he had done. He was reinstated after serving eight years of his suspension.
8 Michel Pollentier
Cyclist caught extracting the urine
Jacques Anquetil, one of the giants of the Tour de France, once remarked: 'You don't ride the Tour on mineral water.' Whatever it was Michel Pollentier rode it on we'll never be absolutely sure because he was disqualified during the 1978 race, not because of what was in his urine but because the urine he gave at a drug test wasn't his. Pollentier had just hurtled up the precipitous Alpe d'Huez to win, alone, and take the race leader's yellow jersey. According to one report, officials conducting the post-stage test became suspicious when, 'Pollentier began pumping his elbow in and out as if playing a set of bagpipes'. Ordered to lift his jersey, the Belgian did so to reveal an elaborate plumbing system running from a rubber, urine-filled bulb under his arm to the test tube. Pollentier served a two-month suspension before he started racing again. The practice of substituting uncontaminated urine was reckoned to be widespread at the time.
10 Mr Martin
The phantom horse race of 1909
A top-hatted gentleman calling himself Mr Martin walked into the offices of The Sportsman newspaper and asked them to publish the card of the Trodmore Hunt Steeplechase to be held in Cornwall on the August Bank Holiday Monday, 1909. The editor, impressed by the detailed programme of the event, agreed not only to print the card, but also to publish the results, which his new acquaintance would telegraph through. Had the editor checked, he would have discovered that Trodmore and its steeplechases did not exist. As it was, some fancy bets on Reaper to win the fourth race, which, according to The Sportsman, it duly did at 5-1, had bookmakers paying out sizeable sums.
Other bookmakers waited for the results printed in the Sporting Life the next day and here, because of a printer's error, Reaper's price was 5-2, which raised the alarm that this was a scam. No one was ever caught.
Justifying his selection...
This month's 10 was selected by Observer sports writer Jon Henderson. Here he explains his choices:
Why single out Onischenko, from a relatively obscure sport, to head this roll of infamy? The answer is that fencing might be relatively obscure but the cheating itself was on an epic scale - and on the biggest stage of all, at the Olympic Games.
Unlike Diego Maradona, Onischenko could not claim that it was a reflex thing.
Unlike Ben Johnson, he could not dilute his guilt by saying that he was doing something many others were doing and if the authorities were unable to nail his rivals he had to cheat merely to compete.
Onischenko's cheating, in a sport rooted in chivalry, was premeditated, ingenious and wonderfully original. He must have reflected at length on what he was doing as he wired his weapon, but he saw no reason to abandon the dastardly deceit. And he devised his trickery without reference to precedent, unless this sportswriter has missed all those stories about circuit-tampering épéeists.
The contest for who should finish second was close, but the White Sox edged Maradona because the latter's action was not premeditated, though Maradona did compound his crime by claiming divine intervention (however much we enjoyed the 'Hand of God' line).
Given its current travails, it is perhaps surprising that cricket has escaped unscathed from this attempt to name sport's greatest fraudsters. WG Grace dealt more in gamesmanship and high-handedness than cheating, while the matchfixing scandals that are now unravelling will almost certainly provide prime candidates for similar lists in the future. But Hanse Cronje apart (and he was a candidate) very few big names have actually been nailed for cheating.
Source: Observer
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John Henderson - Sports Correspondent of the Observer
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