There’s a competition with a longer history in the Olympics than almost any other sport: the race between cheaters and authorities to outsmart the other in the hopes of obtaining a prize, or safeguarding its dignity. The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the latest flashpoint, has featured familiar controversies like reports of doping by 23 Chinese swimmers, but also some more innovative tactics, such as the alleged use of drones by the Canadian women’s soccer team staff to spy on their rivals’ practice sessions.
Members of the New Zealand team spotted the drone and reported it to the French authorities, who then traced it back to Joseph Lombardi, a staff member of Canada Soccer. The team was docked six points and the offending staff members suspended, with some Canadians complaining that the treatment was unfair.
But the Canadian team got off lightly compared to those who were accused of cheating in the ancient Olympics. “At the games they give the runners who start too early a sound thrashing” with a rod, says a Corinthian general in Herodotus’ histories. The worst cheaters would have names carved beneath statues of Zeus near the Olympics venue, ensuring that they would live forever in infamy. Cheating wasn’t just a violation of the competitive spirit or a taint on their city’s honor, but a transgression against the gods, for whom the games were held in thanksgiving.
Some Greeks took the precaution of putting the fate of disfavored athletes in the hands of divine intervention, then, by inscribing curses in a strip of lead and then hiding it somewhere in the athletic facilities. Others used more direct means to gain an advantage, even when the rules were simple and permissive; one cup from 490 BC depicts a wrestler breaking the only two prohibitions in that sport by biting his opponent and attempting to gouge out his eyes. An official stands at the periphery, preparing to strike the offender with his rod.
City-states, hoping to win civic glory, sometimes schemed to bribe top athletes to falsely claim that city as their own. When one of those athletes ran for Syracuse instead of his home city of Croton, the government tore down his statue and confiscated his house, converting it into a public jail.
The Roman emperor Nero, who fancied himself a man for all seasons (or wanted to convince everyone else he was), participated in the 67 AD Olympics and won every single contest in which he was a competitor. During the 10-horse chariot race, he was thrown off his vehicle and had to leave the track to avoid being trampled, but he pressured the judges crown him anyway; Nero would have won the race if he was able to complete it, of course.
In the Olympics and other ancient sporting events, organizers got in on the act as well, pocketing bribes to rig the proceedings if they thought they could get away with it. For some people, spite was its own reward; the historian Procopius records that when the Persian king Khosrow I captured the Roman city of Apamea in 540 AD, he arranged a chariot race in which hippodrome attendants, following his orders, held up the charioteer from the Roman emperor’s favored Blue faction so that his rival Green competitor would pass him and win.
The Olympics and chariot racing declined as the Roman world fragmented, and knightly tournaments, which served to entertain and prepare its participants for war, emerged as the new popular spectacle. Tournaments began as rougher, less “gentlemanly” affairs in which competitors rode against each other with lances and then proceeded to fight with close-quarters weapons ahorse or on foot. Prizes were not given to the participants by the hosts, but taken from rival competitors after they were incapacitated in the form of his arms, armor or prized destrier; in many cases, a competitor himself was taken captive and ransomed for a hefty sum.
In the chaotic tangle of dust, horseflesh and steel, finding an unexpected advantage was not difficult for those unyoked from scruple. Count Philip of Flanders would often arrive at the lists with his retinue and publicly declare his intention to spectate rather than fight. Only after the ensuing mêlée had left his potential opponents “weary, disarrayed and disorganised” would Philip then sweep in with his knights and subdue the easy pickings.
Inasmuch as this resembled the use of a reserve force in battle in an activity meant to emulate battle (though Philip was not coming to the aid of anyone, like a reserve typically does), the knights and judges accepted the use of this tactic. As casualties mounted in the traditional mêlée and church officials expressed disapproval at the carnage, tournaments slowly became safer, more ritualized affairs, and jousting between two knights evolved from warm-up activity to main event, swapping roles with a tamer (and therefore more boring) version of the mêlée. Organizers published rulebooks that regulated everything from the actual combat (no aiming at unprotected parts!) to the dress code for participants and spectators alike. Prizes, finally, were given, rather than taken.
While chivalric honor may have been real for some knights, the allure of fame and wealth, or the simple rush of reckless adrenaline, was sometimes too great. One Polish knight who participated in the celebrated 1475 Landshut Wedding jousts was caught sneaking a piece of leather under his saddle to gain height and was expelled in disgrace, but politics saved a Bohemian knight in English service who struck his French opponent’s helmet with an “ugly sideways thrust” during a 1390 tournament near Calais. The chronicler Froissart records that both sides saw clearly the Bohemian was at fault, but the French, not desiring to provoke the English during a lull in the Hundred Years’ War, grudgingly excused his behavior.
Death, taxes and accusations of double standards in anti-cheating enforcement are still very much alive today. In 2021, U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was barred from participating at the Tokyo Olympics — despite winning the 100-meter dash at the trials — after she tested positive for marijuana. But it wasn’t Richardson’s drug test that stoked the most considerable backlash. Switzerland’s Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in 2021 found that 17-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva was guilty of an anti-doping violation after testing positive for the illegal drug trimetazidine. The incident drew claims of a double standard. Valieva’s punishment included a four-year ban on competition and the disqualification of her results since Christmas Day of 2021; however, she was still allowed to participate in Tokyo.
In Richardson’s own words, written as a comment under a post by USA Today of the news that Valieva would be permitted to compete, “The only difference I see is I'm a Black young lady."
With the advent of different entry standards in modern sporting events came new ways for athletes to cheat their way in. In the 2000 Sydney Paralympics, 10 of the 12 Spanish competitors from the country’s intellectually disabled basketball team — who won gold — were found to have feigned their disabilities, in a deeply shocking scandal that reverberated through the disabled community. As reported by USA Today, Games organizers elected to suspend the intellectual disability classification at the next two Paralympics. The two players with genuine disabilities face the same sanctions as their bogus teammates, and had to return their medals.
The 2000 Olympics in Sydney were likewise marred by cheating scandals. After a yearlong investigation, it was determined that Chinese gymnast Dong Fangxiao falsified her age. Fangxiao, a member of China’s bronze-medal winning team that year, was only 14 at the time she competed, which was two years younger than the minimum. Her Olympic results were subsequently nullified, and the third place honor was transferred to the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, per The New York Times. And Marion Jones, an American sprinter, forfeited five medals (including three gold) after admitting that she had dabbled in steroid usage ahead of the Sydney Games. The stunt — along with a separate check fraud case — also landed her six months in prison in 2008.
Nowadays, people don’t need to travel all the way to the Olympics to see cheaters' names inscribed in shame under the statues of Zeus. They’re available for everyone to view on the internet. The Olympics look very different from what they were in Classical Greece, and so does the cheating, a threat that continuously evolves with the organizers’ resources to crack down and maintain the competitive spirit.
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