Encyclopedia > Olympic Games scandals

  Article Content

Olympic Games scandals

Both the Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games have been marred by various incidents and scandals. They include:

1910 Olympic Games[?]: The I.O.C expels Manuel Quintana Jr.[?] for using the word "Olympic" without permission in an international sports competition in his home country of Argentina.

1912 Olympic Games[?]: The U.S. athlete Jim Thorpe is stripped of his gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon after it is learned that he played professional minor league baseball one summer three years earlier. The silver medalist in the decathlon refused to accept the medals when offered to him. The gold medals were restored to Thorpe in 1983, years after his death.

1932 Summer Olympic Games[?] After winning the silver in equestrian dressage, the Swede Bertil Sandstrom[?] is demoted to last for clicking to his horse to encourage it, though he asserts it was a creaking saddle making the sounds.

1936 Summer Olympic Games The I.O.C. expels American Ernest Lee Jahnke[?], the son of a German immigrant, for encouraging athletes to boycott Hitler's Berlin Games. He is replaced by U.S.O.C[?] president Avery Brundage[?], who supported the Games. In the cycling match sprint finals, the German Toni Merkens[?] fouls Arie van Vliet[?] of the Netherlands. Instead of disqualification he is fined 100 marks and keeps the gold.

1968 Winter Olympic Games Three East German competitors in the women's luge event are disqualified for illegally heating their runners prior to each run.

1988 Summer Olympic Games[?] Canadian sprinter, Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal for the 100 Metre Dash when he tested positive for anabolic steroids after the event.

1994 Winter Olympic Games Jeff Gillooly[?], the ex-husband of figure skater Tonya Harding arranged for an attack on her closest rival, Nancy Kerrigan[?], prior to the start of the Games. Both women did compete, with Kerrigan winning the silver and Harding doing very poorly.

2002 Winter Olympic Games

  • A number of I.O.C. members were forced to resign after it was uncovered that they had accepted inappropriately valuable gifts in return for voting for Salt Lake City to hold the Games.
  • Figure skating: Dual gold medals were awarded in pairs figure skating after allegations of collusion among judges. The investigation continues.
  • Cross-country skiing: Three cross-country skiers were disqualified after blood tests indicated the use of darbepoetin, a drug intended to boost red-blood-cell production. The skiers were Johan Muehlegg of Spain, Larissa Lazutina[?] of Russia and Olga Danilova[?] of Russia. Muehlegg and Lazutina were stripped of medals won in the events for which the blood tests were administered, though all three skiers were permitted to keep medals won earlier in the Games.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
DB

... major German railway company DB is the abbreviation of Dominion Breweries[?], a major beer brewing company of New Zealand. This is a disambiguation page; that is, one ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 61.3 ms