Scandal Olympics

Major tournaments like the Olympic Games are remembered by most sports fans not for dry protocols of final results, but for bright moments, most of which do not relate to the sport itself...

Hitler said “We must!”

Curiosities began with the very first World Olympic Games in 1886. For example, a Greek marathon runner was deprived of a medal for traveling part of the distance on a cart, and a Japanese marathon runner was disqualified because he stuck his pole into a jumping hole and climbed along it to the bar. At that time, any controversial violations became scandals on a national scale. The same Japanese, for example, was so offended by the principled judges that upon returning to his homeland he explained his failure by discrimination against Asians.

At first, while the rules of Olympic sports were just evolving, the scale of the incidents was shocking. For example, the final 400m race in London in 1908 began with two US representatives simply grabbing their opponent's arms while their teammate calmly ran ahead. The violation was obvious, but the Americans thought of filing an appeal, and when it was rejected, they refused to restart in protest. Almost the same example was used by a local cyclist in Berlin in 1936, who took first place from his opponent. Only the German was still recognized as the winner - at the invisible direction of Adolf Hitler, who was present in the stands.

Sports policy

Politics, by the way, has interfered with big-time sports from time immemorial. If we do not take into account the tragedy at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, when a group of Palestinian militants shot 11 athletes from Israel, and the explosion in 1996 in Atlanta, the most famous sports echo of a political scandal is still considered the mass brawl between water polo players of the USSR and Hungary. It happened half a century ago, almost immediately after the memorable bloody riot in Budapest. Not only athletes and coaches and staff visited the pool that day, but even dozens of particularly caring spectators...

By the way, our team emerged victorious from the brawl, although the judges did not appreciate this, taking away the victory and disqualifying the entire team. But in their homeland, Soviet athletes were greeted as heroes, and the team captain was even awarded for active “combat actions.”

By the way, about the judges. How could it be possible not to recognize the huge Polish woman Stanislawa Walasiewicz, who won the 100-meter race in Los Angeles in 1932, as a man? Alas, he took his secret to the grave, and his official husband, with whom they lived happily married for several years, is silent... And where were the doctors who checked the athletes? After all, in those years they did not expose doctors to artificial genitals with someone else’s urine, as the legendary football player Diego Maradona did in his time...

Running tablets

Until the end of the twentieth century, knowledge about sports medicine was very mediocre. They started talking widely about doping scandals after the disqualification of the legendary runner Ben Johnson, who was first caught using a miracle supplement, and then - during a re-test - finally fell asleep due to lies. Since then, lovers of stimulants can only dream of a quiet life - fighters for purity can come with an inspection at any time, anywhere in the world.

Most experts agree: now everyone accepts the “wheels” in one way or another, but they catch those who abuse the filth so much that they are saturated with it to the ends of their hair... But the problem is that most athletes, in pursuit of records, lose their sense of proportion. So new revelations await us in London...

Thugs attack

After Munich 1972, the organizers began to pay the closest attention to security, but for some eccentrics even dense police cordons are not a hindrance. The fashion for a moment of glory has been going on since 1896, when at the first Olympic Games in London the table tennis tournament was won by a spectator who was accidentally included in the list of participants. Since then, apparently, everyone believes that they can become a hero!

But nowhere did the fame-hungry public shine as much as in 2004 in Athens. YouTube is still relishing two episodes: how at the beginning of the Olympics a naked man in a tutu jumped from a three-meter diving board while diving, and how, at the end of the Games, a drunk fan knocked down the leader of the marathon race. The latter, however, was eventually awarded a consolation medal, but what does it mean in comparison with the lost gold?

In general, the 2004 Olympics firmly holds the palm in terms of scandals and oddities. What can we say if even nature rebelled against the Games?! So, a participant in a mountain biking competition was bitten half to death by bees! It’s also good that in the heat of the struggle, she accidentally looked at her chest, which in the blink of an eye turned into a beehive, and instantly took off her clothes.

By the way

The first scandal of the 2012 Olympics happened long before it began. Last summer, the Iranian Olympic Committee moved on the emblem of the Games, which, as you know, is made in the form of stylized numbers “2”, “0”, “1”, “2”. The Persians saw in the drawing the word “Zion” - the name of the mountain sacred to the Jews - and refused to participate in the religious setup.

However, further – more. A few days before the opening ceremony, the President of Belarus and concurrently the head of the Olympic Committee, Alexander Lukashenko, was banned from entering London. Then, for political reasons, Argentina, which has been in conflict with Great Britain for more than 30 years, withdrew. Then the sports world was rocked by the disqualification of a dark-skinned Greek racist.

At this rate, the Games in London will break all records of scandal...