- The stars of professional sports are often people that we look up to. So when it's discovered
that they've cheated, we get angry. Throughout the history of
both professional sports and the Olympics, there have been a select group of people who rose to the top, became stars only to later be exposed for not only breaking
the rules of the game, but for doing things that were
highly illegal to get there. So today, I'm going to
tell you about 10 people who made it to the top of their game, what they ended up doing
and how they ended up falling from greatness. These are the 10 worst
cheaters in sports history. Number 1 is Lance Armstrong. Born on September 18th, 1971,
former American professional road cycling champion, Lance Armstrong has accomplished a lot in his life. Known as La Boss or Big Tex by his peers, he battled stage three
testicular cancer back in 1996, won seven Tour de France Cycling Marathon between 1999 and 2005 and
even won a bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics. So you know, he's just
a little accomplished. However, as incredible as all of that is, the hero that people
saw in him faded rapidly in January of 2013. Just shortly after retiring
from his cycling career, he was investigated by the United States Anti Doping Agency. Their reports siting
him as the ring leader of an extremely sophisticated and successful doping program, not only involving himself
but other cyclists as well. But Armstrong chose not
to fight the allegations and instead decided to come
clean about his drug use in an interview with none
other than Oprah Winfrey. Armstrong ended up being
stripped of all of his Tour de France titles
and was banned from any sport regulated by the
World Anti Doping Agency. Number 2 are the Chicago White Sox. Known as the Black Sox Scandal, this next story of cheating
rocked the city of Chicago during the 1919 World Series of (Major League) Baseball. After their five game to three defeat, players from the Chicago White Sox were actually accused of purposely
throwing their games against the Cincinnati Reds
in order to collect bets that they made with gamblers. The plan to lose the
series started as a protest against the White Sox
owner Charles Comiskey who was wildly disliked due to his underpaying of the team's players. Yes they were under
payed despite previously winning the 1917 World Series and being one of the
best teams in the league. In September of 1920,
nearly a full year later, a grand jury listened
to the confessions of pitcher Eddie Cicotte and
outfielder Shoeless Joe Jackson. And on October 22nd, 1920, eight players were charged with conspiracy to defraud. Interestingly because of
this, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed the first
Commissioner of Baseball in an effort to protect
the sport's clean image and he gave all eight players
a lifetime ban from the sport. Talk about taking a man's
balls away from him. Man, that's tough. Number 3 is Sylvester Carmouche. If you're thinking the only way to cheat in a horse race is to
force feed your stallion horse steroids, think again. As it turns out if the
weather's just right, you can win without racing at all. That's exactly what happened
on January 6th, 1990, at the Delta Downs Racetrack
in Vincent, Louisiana. The entire track was
engulfed in a thick fog that made spectators unable to see the jockey's or their horses. So jockey Sylvester Sly Carmouche and his horse Landing Officer placed a distant first in the race, ahead of everybody else. The strange thing is no other
jockey saw Carmouche pass. What was even more odd
is that Landing Officer had only won 5 of
his previous 53 races. So something seemed a little fishy. The track's veterinarian
noticed that Landing Officer didn't seem to be out of breath. And had no dirt on his
legs from running the race. So he got a little suspicious. As it turns out, he stayed
in place while the others raced around the track and
had only pretended to win. Because of this he was outed as a cheater and was banned from racing for 10 years. Number 4 is Rose Ruiz. Marathons are super long
so who can blame someone who wants to get it
over with quicker right? Well, when you take
shortcuts and then win, that's when there's problem. In 1980, Cuban born marathon Rosie Ruiz won the 84th Boston
Marathon by a large margin, making her the female record holder for the best time ever achieved. But oddly and very suspiciously, she wasn't even seen on the
track by any of the personal or other competitors throughout the race. It was quickly discovered that
Ruiz had cut off the track and used a shorter route only to jump back on the racetrack
near the finish line. But this wasn't even the first time that she had done this. She had used the same technique previously in the New York City Marathon to qualify for that race in Boston. But during that race, she
actually opted to take the subway to the finish line. Officials obviously caught her cheating and she was stripped of her
marathon title eight days later. The award being given to the people who came in second place. Number 5 is Ben Johnson. Born in Falmouth, Jamaica but identified as a Canadian athlete, Ben Johnson became a national sensation after winning the gold
medal in the 100 meter final at the Seoul Summer Olympic
Games on September 24th, 1988. Johnson actually set a
world record at the time completing the race in just 9.79 seconds and becoming the first Canadian athlete to win the event since 1928. Unfortunately just three
days after the race, the Olympic Doping Control Center reported that Johnson's urine tested
positive for anabolic steroids and the world record win
that he had was disqualified. And on top of that,
the records that he set at the Olympics and at the
1987 World Championships were both rescinded and he
was suspended from the sport until 1991. Now you know, most times
people would learn their lesson from such an embarrassing event, but not everybody's so smart. On January 7th, 1993, he
made a glorious comeback, winning the 50 meter in Grenoble, France but unbelievably once
again he tested positive for performance enhancing supplements. Johnson was then banned
from racing indefinitely. Number 6 is Barry Bonds. Born on July 24th, 1964, legendary former Major League Baseball player Barry Bonds was one of the sport's greatest athletes with records for most home runs over all and most home runs in a single season. He stood second only to Babe Ruth for the most career wins. With amazing accomplishments like that, it was tough for a lot of people when they found out just
how much of a cheater the baseball icon was. Back in 2000, Bonds was
approached by Balco, the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative with an invention that
they called the clear. Oh, sounds safe and promising. The thing is is that it was
performance enhancing steroid that was virtually undetectable by tests administered at the time. Not only did Bonds accept
it, but went as far as to connect the company
with other sports stars that would benefit from
these enhancements. But after an investigation that took place between 2003 and 2007, Bonds
was indicted on charges of perjury and of obstruction of justice after he lied to a grand jury about accepting drugs from Balco. Because of this, he has not entered into the National Baseball Hall of Fame even though he's been
eligible for several years. Number 7 is Marion Jones. Born on October 12th, 1975, Marion Jones is an American Track and Field athlete who won two bronze medals
and three gold medals at the 2000 summer Olympic
games in Sydney, Australia. Going back all the way
to her high school days of track and field, Jones had been accused many times of using performance
enhancing substances but managed to somehow
avoid testing positive. It wasn't until October 5th of 2007, after a large scale
investigation into Jones and other high profile athletes for using untraceable steroids, that she announced her
retirement from track and field and admitted to using
performance enhancing drugs including steroids
throughout her whole career. The United States Anti Doping Agency ended up stripping her
of all titles and awards that she received after
September 1st of 2000. And yes, this included
all of her Olympic medals and three other World
Championship victories. Number 8 is Tim Donaghy. You don't have to be a player or a coach to profit from cheating. Sometimes even those that are
officiating get to benefit. Former NBA referee Tim
Donaghy officiated 772 regular season games and 20 playoff games in his 13 year long career
in professional basketball. Unfortunately none of
that mattered through 2007 when the FBI investigated
Donaghy on suspicions that he bet 10's of thousands of dollars on the games that he refereed. As it turns out, he made
bogus calls against players in order to guarantee
that he'd win himself a nice little payday. According to the reports, he
had made some big connections with individuals involved
with organized crime and made himself $2,000 for every single pick that he gave them. Donaghy ended up resigning from the league on July 9th, 2007 before the
FBI reports were released. And on August 15th, he
pled guilty to charges against him from the report. After serving prison time,
he released an autobiography appropriately titled
Personal Foul about his betting scandal in the NBA. Number 9 is Tonya Harding. Sports man, they're wicked serious, so serious in fact that some
people will do anything to win, even severely injure their opponents. Or in the case of Tonya Harding, have someone else injure them. On January 6th, 1994,
after a practice session for the US Figure Skating Championships in Detroit, Michigan, two-time
Olympian figure skater Tonya Harding had her
ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and bodyguard Shawn Eckhart hire a hit man to attack her biggest
competition Nancy Kerrigan to break her right leg. The hit man Shane Stant assaulted Kerrigan with a police baton but managed to only bruise her and failed to
actually break any bones. I've been hired to do
a job, whackety whack. Well that wasn't hard enough. But regardless Kerrigan
was forced to withdraw from the competition allowing
Harding to win first place. But Kerrigan ended up
recovering by the time the winter Olympics took place and took the silver medal while
Harding only came in eighth. But after the scandal was discovered, for her role in the sabotage Harding was given three years probation, 500 hours of community service
and a whole lot of frowns. She was also stripped of her
1994 US Championship title and was banned for life from
professional figure skating. And number 10 is the
Spanish Paralympic Team. And now for the grand
master of cheating scandals. In what is truly an offensive
and disgusting move, the Spanish Intellectually
Disabled Basketball team at the 2000 Sydney Summer Paralympic games was made up of individuals
who weren't disabled at all. The basketball team won the
gold medal in their sport, defeating the non cheating Russian team. Prior to the games, the team was not given any medical tests to
prove their eligibility. But provided medical
evaluations that had been forged and given to them by
Fernando Martin Vincenti, the then head of the Spanish Federation for Medically Handicapped Sports. The scandal ended up being discovered because after the picture of the gold medal team was released, people who knew some of the athletes came forward revealing that
they were not disabled. Yes I know Jose, he no
mentally challenged, he's stupid but he no mentally challenged. It was later concluded
that 10 out of the 12 men on the team had no mental
handicap whatsoever. But the fraud didn't end
there because it also included Spain's table tennis, track
and field, and swimming teams who won five medals. It was believed that they
all intentionally signed up in order for Spain to gain
more Olympic team sponsorships. So those were the 10 biggest
cheaters in sports history. But as always, I wanna know from you is there someone else that you think deserves to be on this list? Leave your response below and
I'll be reading through them and I'll pin the best comment to the top. If you enjoyed this, you
should definitely check out my friend Mike Korzemba's
channel by pressing or clicking the thumbnail to
the right of your screen now. He makes incredible videos
about not only NBA conspiracies but more that'll really
make you think including his new video The Four Worst
Scandals in NBA History. Make sure you check out him
out and tell him I sent you and I will see you next time.
