Top 20 Worst Cheaters in Sports

It was June 28, 1997, and heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield was getting in the ring with the number one contender, Mike Tyson. The fight was highly anticipated and served as a rematch of an earlier bout, which Holyfield won via TKO in the eleventh. The second fight was largely dominated by Holyfield, who was controlling Tyson with sharp punches and smart movement. Tyson grew increasingly frustrated until…he bit a chunk out of Holyfield’s ear. But here's where it gets even crazier - after the officials gave Tyson a stern warning, he did it again! Referee Mills Lane finally stopped the madness and disqualified Tyson, putting an end to what many consider the most bizarre fight in boxing history.

The stakes are high. France and Ireland are battling it out in a World Cup qualification playoff, and the winner gets a ticket to the big tournament in South Africa. The match has gone into extra time, the teams deadlocked 1-1 on aggregate. That’s when France’s Thierry Henry controls the ball not once, but twice, with his hand before passing to William Gallas, who scores and wins the game for France. They go to the World Cup and Ireland is sent packing. Henry later admitted to handling the ball and even stated that “the fairest solution would be to replay the game.” But this came after FIFA had already ruled out a rematch. The damage was done, and Henry’s reputation was in tatters.

A celebrated track and field athlete, Marion Jones was a superstar of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, winning a total of five medals - three of them gold. Enter the BALCO[b] scandal, which saw the feds investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative for providing steroids to athletes. The founder of BALCO tells ABC that he had personally provided Jones with steroids, and others testify that she had been taking them, including reporters and even Jones’s ex-husband. After years of denial, Jones finally admits that, yep, she’d been using performance-enhancing drugs all along, including during those triumphant Sydney Olympics. The IOC strips her of her medals, she’s banned from the sport, and she even goes in the can for six months for lying to federal investigators.

It was the 2001 Little League World Series, and there’s a new phenomenon named Danny Almonte on the mound. He is absolute fire, throwing 70 miles an hour, striking out 86% of the batters he faced, and even throwing a perfect game. Reporters called him a baseball sensation - while others raised their eyebrows. A team from Staten Island hired a private investigator to look into Almonte, and officials started digging into his past. They found that he was actually 14 years old, not 12, and therefore too old for the league. Danny was cleared of wrongdoing, as he was reportedly unaware of the deception. Blame instead went to his father, Felipe - he was banned from the Little League and charged with falsifying a birth certificate.

College basketball was nearly ruined forever in 1951 thanks to the infamous CCNY scandal. Some background - point shaving is when players collude with gamblers to fix the score of a game, often for the price of a bribe. And while this scandal is named after the City College of New York, it actually involved seven American schools. The scandal blew up in 1951, when a police investigation busted the scheme and accused dozens of players of point-shaving. Many of the accused received lifetime bans from the sport of basketball, and some even went to prison. It also changed the entire landscape of college basketball, resulting in stricter rules, more oversight, and a big push to keep corruption out of the game.

This tough-as-nails Mexican boxer was known for his relentless pressure and brutal punching power - power that may have come from somewhere else. Margarito was posed to fight Shane Mosley for the WBA welterweight title, but Mosley’s trainer noticed that Margarito had some kind of mystery substance in his handwraps. Upon further study, it was found to be calcium sulfate, which forms a hard, plaster-like material when combined with moisture. Yep, he was essentially boxing with casts on his hands. Margarito’s hands were rewrapped and he subsequently lost the fight, and later investigations unearthed similar clues in earlier matches, leading some to conclude that he had been cheating all along.

The Montreal[e] Olympics were dominated by East Germany - a fact that surprised everyone and gave rise to more than a few vocal critics. The small country finished second in the medal tally and utterly dominated in women’s swimming, winning all but two events. Observers at the time were deeply suspicious of this performance, and their suspicions were validated when the truth eventually came out. You see, in the years leading up to the Olympics, East Germany implemented a government-run program aimed at enhancing the performance of its athletes with steroids and other PEDs. They pumped their athletes with drugs and then dumped the surplus needles into the Saint Lawrence River. How symbolic is that?

It’s always a shame when huge accomplishments are overshadowed by controversy. During the 1988 Summer Olympics, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson won the 100m[f] and beat his own world record with an astounding finish of 9.79 seconds. It was one of the most thrilling and unforgettable moments in Olympic history. Of course, he was doping the entire time. Yep, just a few days later his urine sample tested positive for the banned substance stanozolol, and both his gold medal and world record were stripped. To make matters even worse, Johnson also admitted to using steroids for the first world record run, so that was rescinded as well. His career never recovered, and he was banned for life after testing positive yet again in 1993. 

It was the 84th rendition of the popular Boston Marathon. Professional runners are grinding through miles of sweat and determination when this random, unknown woman named Rosie Ruiz wins the race. Not only that, but she sets the record for the fastest time ever for a female runner in the Boston Marathon. And not only that, but she sets the third-fastest female time in any marathon. Ever. Well, it didn’t take long for people to notice that she wasn’t sweating, her legs weren’t muscular, and no one could recall seeing her during the race. Turns out, she jumped into the course about half a mile from the finish line and fooled everyone into thinking she was a masterful runner. Masterful troll, more like.

This basketball referee worked in the NBA for thirteen seasons, officiating well over 700 games. All that down the toilet to make a little bit of money. You see, Donaghy attracted the attention of the FBI, who began looking into his career and personal life. They uncovered a shocking truth. Donaghy was using his inside information and knowledge to bet on games. But gets even worse - Donaghy officiated some of the matches that he bet on and made allegedly bogus calls to direct the outcome of the game. He had been doing this for a number of years and eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and transmitting wagering information through interstate commerce. He was sentenced to fifteen months in federal prison.

Widely considered one of the best coaches in football history, Bill Belichick’s reputation is firmly set in stone. Minus one little hiccup - Spygate. During the 2007 season, Belichick and his New England Patriots were caught videotaping the opposing teams’ defensive signals. According to NFL rules, teams could not use video equipment to capture opposing coaches’ signals from their own sidelines. As such, Belichick was personally fined $500,000, which was the largest fine ever levied on a coach, and the Pats were stripped of their 2008 first-round draft pick. The controversy also raised questions about how much the Patriots’ dominance during the early 2000s was owed to illegal taping practices.
 

Sometimes cheating has consequences that extend beyond the sport itself. In 1983, Puerto Rican boxer Luis Resto beat the undefeated Billy Collins Jr. via unanimous decision. Collins took a brutal beating, and by the end of the fight, his face was an unrecognizable mess. After the match, it was discovered that Resto’s trainer had removed the padding from his gloves and soaked his hand wraps in plaster. This created vicious and highly illegal punches, and Collins suffered a torn iris. This injury resulted in permanently blurred vision, and he died less than a year later in a car accident. Many suspect that he took his own life. Resto served two and a half years in prison for assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

The 2017 baseball season belonged to the Houston Astros. They finished first in the AL West with a fantastic record of 101-61, and they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers for the club’s first ever World Series title. It was a great underdog story, and it remained as such until 2019 when The Atlantic broke it open. Turns out, the Astros had been illegally capturing the signs given by the opposing catchers. The players would watch this live feed and give various audio cues to the batter to signal which pitch was coming - the most famous of which is a banging trash can. The team was ultimately fined the maximum penalty of $5 million,and their manager A.J. Hinch was suspended for one year and fired.
 

The men’s marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics is perhaps the funniest comedy of errors in sporting history. Cars kicked dust into the athletes’ mouths, runners had to dodge moving trains, one was hallucinating on rat poison which was given as a stimulant, and another took a nap after wandering off course and eating some rotten apples. And then there’s Frederick Lorz, who crossed the finish line after three hours and thirteen minutes. Just as he was being congratulated by Alice Roosevelt, people accused him of cheating. Yep, he hitched a ride to the finish line, even waving to spectators as he passed. He immediately admitted to cheating, and that’s the story of the men’s marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics.
 

Mention The Hand of God to any English soccer fan and watch them wince. Diego Maradona was a player for Argentina, who was facing England in the quarter finals of the 1986 World Cup. Six minutes into the second half, Maradona punched the ball into the net to put his team up 1-0. Despite this being a flagrant foul, the goal was allowed to stand as the officials did not see him handle the ball. Argentina won the game 2-1, and Maradona slyly commented on the controversial goal, saying it was made “with the hand of God.” He later admitted outright that he had handled the ball and claimed that it was revenge for England’s victory over Argentina in the Falklands War.

Baseball was absolutely enormous in the early 20th century, but its integrity was nearly ruined following the 1919 World Series. The heavily-favored White Sox lost to the Cincinnati Reds,  leading to rumors that the games had been fixed. Indeed, several players had conspired with gamblers to deliberately lose games in exchange for bribes. Many believe that organized crime was behind the ploy, specifically Jewish Mob kingpin Arnold Rothstein[m]. The National Baseball Commission was dissolved in shame, and eight White Sox players were indicted for conspiracy to defraud. One of them was the famous Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was subsequently banned from baseball and made ineligible for the Hall of Fame. 

Nestled between the late 1980s and early 2000s is baseball’s “steroid era,” so named because…well, you can probably guess. Many stars of this time have admitted to doping, including Ken Caminiti[n], Alex Rodriguez, and Jose Canseco. In fact, the latter wrote a book titled “Juiced”, in which he claims that up to 80% of all major league baseball players are on steroids. Perhaps the biggest symbol of this era is the 1998 home run record chase, in which Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa battled to beat the record of 61 home runs in a season. McGwire ultimately won and shattered the record with 70 home runs. Guess what? Yep, juiced to the gills.
 

The 2000 Sydney Olympics were marred by controversy, and that reputation extended to the Paralympics. One of the sports was Basketball ID, an event for intellectually-disabled athletes with an IQ less than 75. Spain destroyed the competition, being the only undefeated team and beating Russia in the finals by over twenty points. The truth was unveiled when an undercover reporter playing with the team revealed that most of the athletes were not actually disabled. It was later confirmed that ten of the twelve competitors were not disabled, that the Spanish Paralympic Committee did not perform the necessary IQ tests, and that non-disabled athletes were intentionally signed up with the intention of winning medals and gaining sponsorships. Well that backfired.

American figure skater Tonya Harding was posed to compete at both the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and the Winter Olympics - a dream harbored by many budding athletes around the country. Unfortunately, she threw it all away. On January 6, 1994, Harding’s rival Nancy Kerrigan was assaulted by a man who struck her on the knee with a baton. This man was Shane Stant[o], who had been hired by Harding’s husband Jeff Gillooly. The hope was that the injury would sideline Kerrigan, thereby improving Harding’s chances in the competition. Harding publicly denied knowledge of the attack, but she later admitted to covering it up, and Gillooly insists that she was directly involved in its planning. 

Ask any person on the street to name a famous cheater and chances are they’ll say Lance Armstrong. Who was once the poster boy for cycling is now the poster boy for doping, having been busted in 2012 and stripped of his seven Tour de France[p] titles. Rumors of Armstrong’s cheating date all the way back to the late ‘90s, but he repeatedly denied the accusations. Regardless, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency uncovered evidence of a sophisticated drug program run by Armstrong and accused him of taking multiple PEDs throughout the course of his career. He was banned from cycling and ordered to pay $5 million in restitution, and that’s not counting the personal cost of his tarnished reputation.

Can you think of any more famous cheaters? Let us know in the comments below!