9 Famous Olympic Cheaters

The Olympics is about "the true spirit of sportmanship" and celebrates some of the finest and most prolific sportspeople of all time. Unfortunately, not all winners have got ahead the fair and legal way, as cheating in the Olympics is just about as old as the games itself.

Take a look at nine of the most well known examples of Olympics cheating:

In the 1988 Seoul Olympics Canadian Ben Johnson won the Gold Medal for the 100-meter dash. However, just a day after his big win he tested positive for an anabolic steroid and was stripped of his medal. It was then awarded to American Carl Lewis, who ironically had tested positive for stimulants during the 1988 trials, but this had been overturned by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Like something out of a Hollywood movie, Puerto Rican twins Madeline and Margaret de Jesus attempted to outsmart the 1984 Los Angeles Games. When Madeline hurt herself while competing in the long jump, she sent her identical twin sister Margaret to compete in the 4x400 meter relay. Once the cheif coach of the Puerto Rican Olympics team discovered what they'd done, he pulled out the entire team from the Olympics.

An early example of Olympics cheating, American Fred Lorz "won" the marathon in the 1904 Olympic Game in St. Louis. Problem is, he had actually stopped running at the nine mile mark claiming exhaustion and given a lift by his coach in a car for eleven miles, only for him to then run the remaining part. When spectators complained that he had not run the whole race, the title was given to fellow American Thomas Hicks, who had also got some help in the race, as he used the performance enhancing drug strychnine.

Another Olympic Marathon cheater, in 1896 Spiridon achieved third place in the race, only for it to be discovered that he had completed part of it by horse and carriage. He was disqualified, and as the first two winners were Greek, his disqualification deprived the host country from winning the top three prizes in the race.

American sprinter and long jumper shot to fame in the 2000 Sydney Games when she won three gold medals and two bronze medals. Suspicions quickly arose, not just because of her incredible feats but more importantly because her husband (an American shot putter) tested positive for steroids. She vehemently denied any illegal doings, until in 2007 when she admitted she had used steroids in training for the Sydney games. All of her medals were stripped.

In the 1976 Olympics, Ukranian Boris cheated while fencing British oponent Jim Fox by having modified his weapon with a click that tallied up his score without him actually touching his opponents weapon. The British team exposed his cheating and he was disqualified from the games and the press labeled him as "Boris the cheat." Fined in his home country of Ukraine, he is last known to be working as a taxi driver in Kiev.

In the 1960 Rome Games the Tunisian modern pentathlon team got off to an epicly poor start. To start off, each member fell of their horses, followed by another athlete almost drowning and then another disqualified from the shooting section because he accidentally almost shot a judge. To ease off the humiliation, during the fencing competition they simply sent their best fencer back for each part, hoping the fencing mask would be good enough a disguise. Believe it or not, this cheating attempt failed, and the entire team was thrown out of the games.

The womens East German swimmers did exceptionally well throughout the 70's and 80's Olympics. However, steroid use was long suspected, especially considering the members noticeably deep voices and exceptionally muscular frames. While they denied steroid use for many years, in 1991 the team admitted that they had indeed used these illegal performance enhancing drugs.

Dora Ratjen won the women's high jump record in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. There was just one slight problem, Dora was actually Horst. Years later, Horst claimed that he was ordered by the Nazis to pose as a woman, "for the sake of the honor and glory of Germany." He lived the life of a female athlete for three years.