So, yesterday we took a look at the greatest sports cheats
of all time, numbers 10 thru 6. Now we run through the top five where the
cheating is even more absurdly astounding and sadly, life threatening.
Without further ado:
5. Diego Maradona and
the Hand of God
Maradona, seen here after apparently eating Fidel Castro.
Diego Maradona was an Argentine soccer player who played for
various teams throughout his twenty year career, including Argentina, Boca Juniors, Barcelona
and Napoli. He must be pretty popular because
he co-owns the FIFA player of the century honors with Pele. I’ll be honest.
Other than Beckham, the only soccer player I’ve ever heard of is Pele. So I’m
guessing Maradona was pretty good. However he was eventually suspended from
competition for over a year because, like pretty much everyone in the ‘80’s, he
was hooked through the nose on cocaine.
Say hello to the bad guy.
But that’s not why he’s number five on this list. Let’s step
into the Wayback Machine, to 1986. A young Jim McMahon was dancing the Superbowl shuffle.
Mike Tyson defeated Trevor Birkbeck to win his first boxing belt and a svelte Roger
Clemens sets the single game strikeout mark with 20 hgh-less K’s. And, Argentina defeated England 2-1 in
the World Cup Quarter-final. I mention this last game because Diego Maradona
scored both goals to send Argentina
home victorious. His second goal is often referred to as the “goal of the century.”
But it’s not the second goal that gets him on this list. It’s the first one.
Maradona scored the first goal by punching the ball with his
hand, directing it into the net with a deftness that can only be accomplished
by utilizing opposable digits. Referee Al Bin Nasser never saw it and ruled it
a valid goal, much to the outrage of the Brits. After the game, Maradona
famously stated the goal was scored “un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano
de Dios.” Which basically means, “a little of the head of Maradona and a little
of the hand of God.” So, yes, Maradona blatantly cheated and then credited God
with the goal and the victory.
Seen here: Maradona's hand of god. Not seen: the ref.
Years
later, Maradona admitted that he intentionally used his hand to score the goal
and was hoping the ref didn’t see it. He didn’t. But God did. However, as yet,
God has yet to acknowledge his role in one of the greatest cheats in FIFA history.
Just how God drew it up. I guess.
4.
Tonya Harding
My. She's...uhm...changed.
You
had to know she was going to be on this list. If for no other reason than to
show some hilarious pictures of what she looks like now. But back in the day,
Tonya Harding was a very good skater. In fact, she was the first woman to ever
do a triple axel in the short program; the first woman to do two triple axels
in a single competition; the first ever to do a triple axel combination with
double toe loop and in the year 10,009 she was the first to battle robot pirates and saved the
human race. Again. Ok. I made some of that up.
Tonya Harding seen here in 1991.
But,
by 1994, Harding had fallen on tough times. Her career was sliding backwards
and she was losing face time to up and coming US skaters Nancy Kerrigan and
Oksana Baiul. Going into the 1994 Winter Olympics, Kerrigan was the odds on
favorite to win the gold medal in the event. Enter Tonya Harding, her
ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and her bodyguard Shawn Eckhardt. Gillooly and
Eckhardt essentially hired a hitman – literally. Shane Stant approached Kerrigan
just after practice in Detroit
and hit her in the knee with a lead pipe which surely goes down as one of the most
pathetic moments in sports history. Harding actually won the event in Detroit after Kerrigan was forced to withdraw and both
skaters ended up going to the 94 Olympics for the US.
Harding
was allowed to compete because the USFSA is gutless. She finished ninth. Her
nemesis, Kerrigan, finish second. Oksana Baiul, who was not hit with a pipe, won
the event.
Since
the scandal, Harding was eventually banned from all USFSA participation, put on
about 300 lbs, became a boxer and starred in a sex-tape that causes severe paralysis
and total blindness. Good times.
My buddy Quigs after viewing the Tonya Harding sex tape.
3.
Spanish Paralympians
Not Spanish.
There’s
a SouthPark episode where Eric Cartman figures
he can win the Special Olympics because he would be competing against
handicapped individuals. He, himself, not being handicapped, he figured he was
a cinch to win. Of course, he gets annihilated and finishes dead last.
Real
life, however, doesn’t work with such justice. In the 2000 Paralympics, Spain
fielded a basketball team wherein 10 of the 12 members were perfectly capable,
fully functioning human beings. Nary a shred of a handicap among them. Because the
people who run the Paralympics have souls and couldn’t conceive that an entire
country would try to ‘cheat’ at the Paralympics by fielding a non-handicapped
squad, no one checked the veracity of the Spaniards claims that they were in
fact handicapped. They won the gold medal. Yay Spain.
The Spanish team cheers because they're not handicapped.
It
wasn’t just basketball either. The Spanish fielded non-handicapped competitors
in table-tennis, track and field and swimming events. Keep in mind these were Olympics
for those with mental deficiency.
Which really, really makes you wonder about Spain. I mean…really? You have to
cheat in the intellectually disabled portion of the Paralympics? Really? It
just doesn’t get much worse than that. Unless you kill someone.
I own this album. And yes, it's as awesome as it looks.
2.
Donald Crowhurst.
Donald Crowhurst. Showing the wrong hand signal for "I'm totally screwed."
Did
I say kill someone? Meet Donald Crowhurst. It’s difficult to convey the
enormity of the Donald Crowhurst story in such a small venue as number 2 on a
list. He really deserves his own article…hell his own movie. I could see this as a
Lifetime movie of the week with Luke Perry as Crowhurst, Judd Hirsh as his
father and Lucy Lawless as the woman he loved. But again, I digress.
Let
me see if I can sum up the Donald Crowhurst story. In 1969, Crowhurst was a
failed businessman and inventor who happened to have a legitimately nifty
device, yet no means or money to market it. Crowhurst had designed and built
the Navicator, which sounds like a bad plot device from Star Trek. However, it actually allowed users to take bearings on marine and aviation
radio beacons with a hand held device. Now keep in mind, this was 1969. The
only hand held devices people back then knew of were shaped like wizards or
skulls and could be filled with hash.
The 60's were just plain weird.
Anyway,
Crowhurst decided on an ingenious way to advance publicity for his device. He
entered himself into a single-handed, round the world yacht race. This was a
bad idea for a number of reasons, chief among them was that Crowhurst didn’t
know how to sail a boat and had never before attempted such a lengthy race. What’s
worse, he decided to sail in a boat called a Trimaran, which, while faster than
a monohulled boat, was much more prone to tip over by such things like rogue
waves. And once overturned, Trimarans were impossible to right.
Predictably,
Crowhurst encountered problems right away and came to the realization that he
had two choices. Turn around and abandon the race and face bankruptcy and
public humiliation, or forge on ahead against impossible odds and probably die.
Crowhurst chose option three: He parked his boat in the South
Atlantic and went insane. He made elaborate false reports and false
log entries. Using his ‘device’, Crowhurst was able to convey reports to those
tracking the event which indicated that he was much further along that he
actually was. Well, in actuality he wasn’t moving at all. At any rate, it
initially appears that Crowhurst wanted to finish last, just so he could say he
finished the race, a major feat in and of itself, but his reports were way off
the mark. In fact, they were so off base that it appeared to all involved that he was in fact winning the race.
And setting records to boot. All of this was not lost on Crowhurst and he knew
that his log books would be examined closely upon return to the mainland and of
course, his deception would be discovered. This guilt was compounded by the
fact that his deception caused another racer – Nigel Tetley – who actually was
winning the race – to push his boat faster than was safe and he ended up having
to withdraw from the race. Wracked with guilt over all this and growing
increasingly more insane by the day, Crowhurst composed one final log entry and
disappeared. It’s theorized he simply walked over the side and drowned himself.
His boat was eventually found adrift, along with a 25,000 word log book that
included false logs, poems, quotations, and a long philosophical treatise on
the human condition – which could probably be summed up as “cheaters
never prosper.”
So much for Crowhurst. But he was only bad enough for
second on this list because he only got himself killed. Meet our champion:
1. Panama
Lewis
He looks honest.
Panama Lewis is one of the most notorious figures in
boxing. And if you follow boxing at all, you know that’s saying something.
Lewis is actually a legendary trainer and his stable has housed many a famous
boxer, notably Mike Tyson, Roberto Duran and Aaron Pryor. During his time
training Pryor he was accused of illegally adding stimulants to Pryor’s water
bottles. This was never proven, but it did sully Lewis’s reputation.
However, he achieved infamy on June 16th,
1983 when he trained Luis Resto and put him in the ring against undefeated
prospect Billy Collins Jr. Resto won a unanimous 10-round decision by absolutely
mauling Collins, leaving him battered and bloody. In fact, Collins suffered a
detached retina from the beating and would never box again.
Resto relaxes after beating Collins' brains in with concrete.
It was discovered soon after the fight, however, that
Resto’s gloves were thinner than normal. Resto eventually admitted that he knew
Lewis had tampered with his gloves – and by tampered he meant removed all the
padding. He further admitted that Lewis had soaked his hand wraps in plaster
before taping them to his hands, which essentially meant that Resto was beating
Collins with concrete casts for ten rounds.
Monument to Panama Lewis. Or San Francisco. Not sure which.
In 1986 both Lewis and Resto were put on trial and
found guilty of assault, criminal possession of a weapon – Resto’s plaster
fists – and conspiracy. They each served around two and a half years in prison
and had their licenses to box permanently revoked. However Lewis continued to
train fighters overseas. What he trained them on is a mystery since it appears
he only knew how to cheat and apparently wasn’t very good at it.
As for Collins, he suffered from severe depression over
the loss of his vision, constant headaches and the untimely end of his boxing
career and committed suicide nine months after the fight.
Here’s a picture of Collins right after the ‘fight.’
Words fail me. Except for maybe, "F-you Panama."
There you have it. Panama Lewis. The epitome of
Sportsmanship. So to speak.
