Five Biggest Olympic Controversies of All Time

The Olympic Games have been followed by countries around the world for centuries. Despite wartime cancellations and disqualified countries due to controversial topics such as apartheid, every two years the countries, athletes and spectators come back with renewed vigor and excitement. Yet for some, that excitement has manifested in the most unfortunate of ways.

1) 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games
Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding

Who can forget the biggest, least subtle, and most vicious Olympic scandal of all time? Rivals Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding were considered strong contenders for gold in Women’s Figure Skating in 1994. Just a few weeks before the Winter Games, Nancy Kerrigan was struck with baton just above her right knee after a practice session at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. She collapsed to the floor and felt her dreams of gold fall around her. Harding took gold at the U.S. Championships.

The controversy was heated as investigators suspected Tonya Harding, and attempted to get to the bottom of it before the Games began. With her injured knee, Nancy Kerrigan skated to second place at the Games, receiving the silver medal with an arena of cheering fans. Harding landed hard in a disappointing 8th place. (Oksana Baiul won gold.)

It was later found that Tonya Harding’s ex-husband was responsible for the incident, as he was the one who hired the assailant. Harding denied any involvement with the attack, yet claimed she was aware it was being planned. She was subsequently fined, sentenced to 500 hours of community service, and placed on three years’ probation. She was furthermore banned from all sanctioned events, and her career ended.

2) 1976 Montreal Summer Games
Boris Onishchenko

After the first event of the pentathlon in the ‘76 Summer Games, the Soviets found themselves in fourth place, just behind the British. The next event was fencing, and the Russian, Boris Onishchenko was considered the best fencer in the competition so nobody was worried. When he seemed to destroy his competitors quite easily, nobody gave it a second thought, until he made one stupid mistake. Britain’s Jim Fox was clearly out of range of Onishchenko’s foil, yet it still registered as a hit. The judges were immediately suspicious, and the British team demanded an investigation of the Soviet’s equipment.

It turns out that Onishchenko rigged the electric sensor in his sword so that he could control his own “hits.” There is no way to know how often he illegitimately added his own scores, but he and the entire Soviet pentathlon team were disqualified.

3) 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games
Mary Decker and Zola Budd

The involvement of Zola Budd, a South African, in the ’84 Games was controversial as the country was banned from the Olympics due to apartheid. Because of ancestry in the United Kingdom, she was able to enter the Games on the British Team.

While Budd’s involvement was controversial enough, during the 3,000m race, Budd and Mary Decker, the American Golden Girl, collided. The barefoot Budd cut in front of Decker, and the American’s spikes gouged the back of Budd’s heel. Decker pitched forward and landed in the infield grass, unable to get up. Her Olympic ambitions were shattered, as Budd limped to a disappointing 7th place, with Americans booing from the stands.

4) 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games
David Pelletier/ Jamie Sale (Canada) and Anton Sikharulidze and Elena Berezhnaya (Russia)

French judges were placed under the microscope when the Russian team was awarded Gold after it was clear that the Canadians put on a much stronger performance in Salt Lake City. It was found that a French judge was “pressured” to score the Russians higher than they deserved. The controversy was resolved relatively quickly. Since they did not find it appropriate to take the gold medals away from the Russians, they awarded two more gold medals to the Canadians David Pelletier and Jamie Sale. All athletes involved handled the situation with positivity and aplomb, and the subjective scoring system was completely changed as a result.

5) 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics
Ben Johnson

A Jamaican native, and Canadian competitor, Ben Johnson impressed the world by breaking two consecutive world records, one in Rome in 1987, and the second at the Seoul Olympics. Canada was so proud of their gold medalist that some of the papers’ headlines read “Bentastic.”

The excitement took a turn for the worst when it was found that Johnson had been taking steroids when he set both world records, and even as far back as 1981. He was stripped of his titles, but was unapologetic. Though he admitted to the use of steroids, he claimed it was necessary to keep up with the other top athletes in the world.

Tags: olympic controversies, olympic controversy

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