Both the Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games have been marred by various incidents and scandals. They include:
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. In solidarity, the decathlon silver medalist refuses to accept the medal when offered to him. The gold medals are restored to Thorpe in 1983, years after his death.
After winning the silver in equestrian dressage, the Swede Bertil Sandström is demoted to last for clicking to his horse to encourage it, though he asserts it was a creaking saddle making the sounds.
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 Dutchman Arie van Vliet. Instead of disqualification Merkens is fined 100 Reichmarkss and keeps the gold.
Three East German competitors in the women's luge event are disqualified for illegally heating their runners prior to each run.
Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson is stripped of his gold medal for the 100 Metre Dash when he tests positive for anabolic steroids after the event.
Jeff Gillooly, the ex-husband of figure skater Tonya Harding, arranges for an attack on her closest rival, Nancy Kerrigan, prior to the start of the Games. Both women competes, with Kerrigan winning the silver and Harding doing very poorly.
A number of I.O.C. members are forced to resign after it is uncovered that they have accepted inappropriately valuable "gifts" in return for voting for Salt Lake City to hold the Games.
Figure skating: Dual gold medals are awarded in pairs figure skating, to Canadian pair David Pelletier and Jamie Sale and to Russian pair Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, after allegations of collusion among judges. The investigation continues.
Cross-country skiing: Three cross-country skiers are disqualified after blood tests indicates the use of darbepoetin, a drug intended to boost red blood cell production. The skiers are Johann Mühlegg of Spain, and Larissa Lazutina and Olga Danilova of Russia. Mühlegg and Lazutina are immediately stripped of medals won in the events for which the blood tests were administered, and excluded from the Games, though all three skiers are initially permitted to keep medals won earlier in the Games. However, in a 18 December 2003 ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the I.O.C is instructed to withdraw all of Mühlegg's and Danilova's other medals in the 2002 Olympics.1912 Olympic Games
1932 Summer Olympic Games
1936 Summer Olympic Games
1968 Winter Olympic Games
1988 Summer Olympic Games
1994 Winter Olympic Games
2002 Winter Olympic Games
