Olympic
Alls fair in love and war, or so were told, but at the Olympic Games there are rules and they are to be adhered to at all times. Obviously not everybody agrees with this and theres always a few who try to bend the rules a little and some who just flout them completely.

Marathon 1904

Fred Lorz crossed the finish line in the marathon at the 1904 Olympic Games in first place. However, all was not as it appeared to be. Lorz had been shattered after nine miles of the race, so he hopped into his managers car for the next 11 miles until the vehicle broke down and he was forced back onto his feet. He ran into the stadium and crossed the finish line, only admitting hed not run the entire race after spectators brought it to the attention of the administrators.

The Press 'sisters'

Between them, Irina and Tamara Press, sisters from the USSR, won five Olympic gold medals and one silver at the games in Rome in 1960 and Tokyo in 1964. Accusations were levelled at the pair that they were not in fact sisters but brothers and their genders came under intense scrutiny. In 1968, when gender verification tests were introduced, the sisters retired from the sporting stage.

Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall

Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall became the first athlete ever to be disqualified from the Olympic Games for using a banned substance alcohol. The Swedish modern pentathlete allegedly had two beers to settle his nerves before the shooting event at the 1968 games in Mexico City.

Boris Onishchenko

Another modern pentathlete to fall foul of the Olympic rules is Boris Onishchenko. At the 1976 games in Montreal, during a fencing bout with Great Britains pentathlon captain Jim Fox, Onishchenko was caught cheating using a doctored weapon, which registered hits without the foil touching anything at all. Needless to say he was disqualified.

Ben Johnson

The most famous Olympic controversy of them all is surely the case of Ben Johnson and the 100-metres at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. Johnson took gold, beating Carl Lewis and Britains Linford Christie, but was later stripped of his medal after he tested positive for steroids. He was also banned for life.


Andreea Rducan

A 16-year-old Romanian became the very first gymnast to be stripped of a medal for testing positive for a banned substance. Andreea Rducan lost her gold medal after she failed a doping test at the 2000 Olympics. She and her team maintained the drug was an over-the-counter cold remedy pill that had not impacted her performance in any way.


Jim Thorpe

At the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, American Jim Thorpe won gold medals in two events: pentathlon and decathlon. However, he had his medals taken away when it emerged that he had been paid for playing two seasons of minor league baseball before competing in the games meaning he officially no longer qualified as an amateur. His medals were eventually restored, but not until 30 years after his death.


Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz

Polands Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz landed himself in hot water at the Moscow games in 1980 after he won the pole vault gold medal. The Russian crowd had booed and hissed the Pole during the competition, in an effort to give their own competitor an advantage. After he claimed his victory, Kozakiewicz made a defiant but rude gesture at the crowd. The Russian ambassador in Poland called for him to be stripped of his medal, but Kozakiewicz had the full support of his nation.


Roy Jones

Roy Jones dominated the light-middleweight boxing competition at the South Korea Olympics in 1988 and didnt lose a single round on his way to the final, where he met local boy Park Si-Hun. To most people watching, Jones dominated the final too, but the judges disagreed and handed the gold to the Korean. In the final round, Jones landed 86 punches to Parks 32, but the decision still went against him. The embarra**ed Korean champion allegedly apologised to Jones.


1972 basketball final


The US basketball team was as close to invincible as a team can get. Going into the 1972 Olympic final in Munich against Russia, they hadnt been beaten in 63 Olympic matches. With Cold War tensions high between the two nations, it was never going to be the friendliest of contests, but nobody could have predicted the controversy that unfolded. As the US celebrated a 50-49 victory, the Russians claimed to have called a time out. An extra three seconds were added to the clock during which time the Russians failed to score. A further three seconds were then added as officials said that the clock was still in the process of being reset when the referee put the ball in play. This time the Russians snatched victory. The US filed an immediate protest following the game and the International Amateur Basketball Federation went into a secret session and delayed awarding the gold medal. In the end, the Russians were awarded the gold, the US boycotted the awards ceremony and the silver medals remain unclaimed to this day