List of Olympic Games scandals, controversies and incidents
Both the summer 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.
1994 Winter Olympic Games The ex-husband of ice dancer 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.
- 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.
- Nordic skiing: Three cross-country skiers were who finished eighth, 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. See