The Olympic’s biggest drug shames
July 21, 2016
This week has been an eventful week in sport with the McLaren report revealing some shocking details about the extent of Russia’s cheating at the London and Sochi Olympics.
The fact Russia was cheating didn’t come as a surprise but the WAY they did it certainly did. According to the McLaren findings their cheating was systematic and sounded like something out of a James Bond movie with secret police and hidden trapdoors in walls.
Sadly this is not the first time the Olympics have been rocked by a drug scandal.
Let’s relive some of the great Olympic drug cheats.
The Chinese Women’s Swim Team 1994-1997
The whispers started back in 1994 when members of the Chinese women’s swimming team emerged from the pool with bigger arms than Arnold Schwarenegger.
Seven swimmers tested positive to steroids late in 1994, decimating the Chinese swimming team prior to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. With many of their big names busted and banned China’s record breaking swimming team took home only one gold medal at Atlanta.
Ben Johnson 1988 Seoul
Canadian Ben Johnson ran the fastest 100m race of all time at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He blitzed his opponents to snare the gold medal.
Three days later all hell broke loose when it was revealed Johnson had failed a drugs test. He was immediately stripped of his gold medal.
To be fair to Johnson, he was not the only drug cheat running in the 1988 100m final. Only two of the eight athletes that ran in that race have not been tainted by the use of performance enhancing drugs.
The race is now referred to as “The Dirtiest Race Of All Time”.
East Germany Women’s Swimming Team 1976
Let’s continue our walk down Steroid lane with East Germany and their efforts in the 70’s and 80’s.
What is it with women swimming teams and using ‘roids?
Since the fall of the Berlin wall, documents and court testimony have established the existence of what was long suspected – that East Germany operated a state-sponsored system of providing performance-enhancing drugs to as many as 10,000 athletes from 1968 to 1988.
But never was it more apparent than during the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. The East German women’s swimming team took out the gold medals in all but two events. Quite an effort indeed…
In 1991 Germany’s swimming coaches admitted to past wrongdoings.
“We confirm that anabolic steroids were used in former East German swimming,” they said in a statement.
Despite the mounting evidence of systematic doping that went on (such as the German government paying compensation to 167 former East German athletes who were part of a doping program) most of the medals won by East Germany still stand today.
Kornelia Edner was the biggest star of the games, becoming the first ever woman to win four gold medals at a single Olympic games.
Marion Jones, Sydney 2000
Say what?? Surely drugs couldn’t infiltrate the Australian Olympic Games. We’re perfect right? Wrong! Once upon a time Marion Jones was the fastest woman alive. She won a legion of fans in Australia when she absolutely dominated the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. She took home a ridiculous five medals including three Gold.
Jones was later stripped of all five medals when she admitted to steroid use after a long and embarrassing period of denial perfectly illustrated in the following video.
In 2008 Jones was sentenced to six months jail for fraud and also lying to a grand jury about her use of performance enhancing drugs.