- [Narrator] An attitude of
winning at all costs sees some athletes throw the
rule book out the window, but once they've crossed that finish line or climbed that podium, a
single keen-eyed onlooker can bring all their hard-won
success crashing down. With that, let's take a look
at some shocking times athletes were caught cheating. (upbeat electronic music) Rosie Ruiz. If you look up the definition
of cheating in the dictionary, there's a good chance
you'll find a picture of Rosie Ruiz's face next to it. Back in 1980, this athlete
became famous almost overnight after she won the Boston Marathon. A complete unknown, she
crossed the finish line with the third-fastest time
of any woman ever recorded. But once she was over the line,
suspicions began to arise. After running over 26 miles
so quickly on a 70-degree day, she should have been completely
exhausted, but Ruiz appeared suspiciously well-rested,
raising questions. Was she on some kind of steroids? Perhaps a special training regimen? After several days of confusion,
witnesses came forward claiming they had seen
Ruiz joined the race from the sidelines less than
a mile from the finish. - [Witness] Probably about
a half mile from the finish. She was in track clothes
and wearing a number, but I thought someone
had just sort of stumbled into the race, maybe
somebody who's a little- - [Narrator] Further
investigation revealed that during the New York
Marathon six months earlier, witnesses had actually
seen Ruiz riding the subway to the finish line. Even though she denied both accusations, the evidence was piled against
her and Ruiz was stripped of her win and record. Although you have to hand it to her, that's certainly one way to train. Dwight Howard. When it comes to cheating,
sometimes you need the biggest balls on the court, or in Dwight Howard's case, the stickiest. Back in 2016, Dwight was
playing NBA-level basketball for the Houston Rockets. While the Rockets were playing
against the Atlanta Hawks, officials realized the ball was covered in a tacky substance right
after Howard had touched it. The rules of the NBA
state that it's illegal to use foreign substances during games, so this raised several red flags. Officials wandered over
to the bench and found a glaringly obvious can of Stickum, a kind of spray adhesive,
in plain sight of everyone. It was once used to help
players get better purchase on the ball, but it was
banned from the sport in 1981. Both teams were warned,
but no player was accused and the game continued. After the game however, Howard admitted to Houston Chronicle writer
Jonathan Feigen that it was him. But not just that, he then
also admitted to using Stickum in every game he played. Somehow, the baller just
laughed the incident off and no fine or charge was
ever brought against him, avoiding what could have
been a very sticky situation. 2012 Olympic badminton players. Of all the sports you might
associate with cheating, I doubt badminton
immediately springs to mind. But at the London 2012 Olympics, intentionally throwing matches became the new winning strategy
for several teams. A round robin system was
used in this Olympics, which meant all teams would
face each other at some point. The results of earlier
matches would be used to put teams into suitable skill brackets, pitting teams of similar
ability against one another. So by strategically losing
some games early on, a team could play easier
matches against weaker teams at the knockout stage with
better chances of winning. This was a strategy that
China's team players Wong Xiaoli and Yu Yang attempted to exploit in the women's doubles tournament. Unfortunately, the South
Korean team they were facing had adopted the exact same strategy. Jung Kyung-Eun and Kim
Ha-Na faced the Chinese team on the court and the
world bore witness to one of the worst games of professional
badminton ever played. How bad? Well, the longest rally in the first game only lasted four strokes. A series of clearly
intentional, basic errors ruined the game and fans jeered
and booed at the teams as they left. (crowd jeering) To make matters worse,
another match between a separate South Korean team
and Indonesian team suffered the same clash of strategies. Because what they were all attempting was so blatantly obvious, all four
pairs were formally accused of trying to rig the matches
by performing poorly. As punishment, they were
disqualified from the rest of the tournament. Hopefully, that'll teach them
not to be so shuttlecocky in the future. Spanish Paralympic basketball team. In 2000, the Sydney Paralympics
was rocked by a scandal that still has people shaking
their heads with shame today. On the Australian Paralympic courts, the Spanish learning-disabled
basketball team beat Russia in their final match to win gold. But after the games closed,
a member of the team, Carlos Ribagorda, confessed
something outrageous to the press. The team was supposed to
be made up exclusively of players with an IQ of less than 70, but 10 of their 12 players were
actually mentally-competent athletes with much higher
IQs than the maximum. Apparently, they had all signed
up as part of a wider scheme to boost their country's
chances of winning. They'd even been provided
with fake medical certificates to help them feign disabilities. Worst of all, for two years
leading up to the Paralympics, they had trained around the
world beating disabled athletes. Even with all that
exercise, I don't know how they could sleep at night. Shockingly, the mastermind
behind the scheme was the president of the
Spanish Federation of Sports for the Intellectually
Disabled, but he was fined just 5,400 euros after
admitting to charges of fraud and embezzlement. Maybe these pieces of
work should have competed in the limbo event instead
seeing just how low they can go. Tonya Harding. In 1994, the world of
figure skating became a total media circus after
drama struck the ice. The day before the US Figure
Skating Championships, titleholder Nancy Kerrigan
was filmed finishing a practice skate in Michigan's Cobo Arena, but just seconds later,
she was screaming in pain on the ground after a man with
a police baton attacked her. - Why, why, why? - [Man] What did he hit you with? - I don't know, some
hard, hard black stick. - [Narrator] With her thigh badly bruised, Kerrigan was unable to compete. Her longtime rival, Tonya Harding, went on to take first place
and was selected alongside her for that year's Winter
Olympic skating team. However, police soon discovered
the attack on Kerrigan had been ordered by a bounty hunter. In a shocking twist of events, Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and her once-bodyguard
Sean Eckhart were labeled as the culprits. They'd hired the bounty hunter
to break Kerrigan's leg, removing Harding's competition
in the upcoming events. Although she claimed she had
no part in the conspiracy, Harding later admitted that
she knew her ex-husband had been involved, but
she'd failed to report it. A disciplinary panel stripped
her of the championship title shortly after she participated
in the 1994 Winter Olympics, but the Olympics had been
filled with some justice of their own. At the games, a malfunction
with her skates saw Tonya place down in eighth while Kerrigan
managed a silver in second. Karma gets pretty icy sometimes. Bloodgate. Back in 2009, the world
of rugby was shaken to its foundations during the scandal now known as Bloodgate. In a Heineken cup match
between the English Harlequins and the Irish Leinsters,
the Harlequin's Tom Williams was suddenly pulled off the pitch in the game's closing moments. He had blood dripping from
his mouth and was told he couldn't play on, but the
only substitute available was Nick Evans. Nick had also been injured
earlier in the game and under normal circumstances, the rules state that a player
can't be subbed out more than once per game, but
thanks to an exception in the rules specifically
regarding blood injuries, Nick was allowed to hobble out regardless. Fortunately, Nick was
exactly the type of player the Harlequins needed at
that moment to have a shot at winning the match. It seemed like a bloody
good stroke of luck, but as Williams headed towards the bench, the cameras caught him
winking to his teammates. Would you be winking and
smiling after a supposed injury to your face? Something definitely wasn't right. So the European Rugby Cup
set up an investigation into the substitution. They found Williams had been
given a fake blood capsule by the team's physiotherapist in order to allow Evans back on
at the critical moment. It was an illegal tactic orchestrated by the team's chief
executive Dean Richards, who was accused of four similar incidents. Richards, Williams,
and the physiotherapist all received bans from the
sport and the Harlequins club was slapped with a 260,000 pound fine. Worst of all, the Harlequins
cheating didn't even bank them the win. To this day, the BBC claims
it was rugby's biggest scandal and I'm inclined to agree. Well, either that or the 2009
alternate away kit designs 2012 Olympic women weightlifters. The final lift of the
75-kilograms category at the 2012 Olympic
Women's Weightlifting event was an incredible moment
for everyone watching. Both Svetlana Podobedova
and Natalya Zabolotnaya had set new Olympic records for women, with Podobedova taking
the gold for Kazakhstan. In doing so, she'd pushed
Zabolotnaya of Russia into silver and Belarusian
lifter Iryna Kulesha to third. They all made lifting
weights look natural, except there was nothing
natural powering the performance of these ladies. Despite testing clean for
illegal performance-enhancing drugs at the time, the
International Olympic Committee began reanalyzing athlete
drug tests in 2015. Thanks to an advance in technology, the committee were able
to pick up previously overlooked substances,
catching past cheaters who thought they'd gotten away with it. The reanalysis revealed a list of athletes who had clearly violated anti-doping laws, including three names you'll recognize, Svetlana Podobedova, Natalya
Zabolotnaya, and Iryna Kulesha. All three of the musclebound matriarchs were disqualified,
stripped of their medals, and had their Olympic records nullified. So even though they were
pumped up on steroids, they still managed this all-natural fail. Femke Van Den Driessche. While some athletes work
to improve themselves, others work to improve
their methods of cheating. That was a sad fact that
became clear back in 2016 after cycling champion Femke
Van Den Driessche became the first-ever athlete to
be caught mechanical doping. That's a fancy way of
saying she'd hidden a motor in her equipment to make the race easier. She was competing in the
Cyclo-cross Championships when she suddenly stopped mid-race, claiming there was a
problem with her bike. But on closer inspection,
officials spotted wires and a battery concealed
under the bicycle seat, leading to a motor
hidden in the crankshaft. Van Den Driessche was
able to turn the motor on and off inconspicuously through
a Bluetooth button attached at the handlebars. This turned the crank and
helped push the pedals at key points in the race. Like here, where on a difficult climb, Van Den Driessche was
seen easily pulling away from the group with very little effort. When asked to deliver her defense, she claimed the bike
belonged to her friend Nico Van Muylder. Even though he confirmed her story, the rules at the time stated
that the responsibility for the bike was all hers. She was hit with a six-year
ban from professional cycling and a fine of 20,000 Swiss francs, which is just shy of $21,000,
before being stripped of all her previous titles. Guess she should have pumped
the brakes on that plan. Have you ever been caught
cheating in a sport before or spotted a professional
breaking the rules? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for watching. (upbeat electronic music)
