Cheating in Various Sports

Sometimes people are so desperate to win that they will resort to cheating. People will go to great lengths just to make sure that themselves as an individual or their team wins. Most of the time though these people get caught, so is it worth it?

A famous sports film with reference to cheating is Cool Runnings. (Pictured right). This film is about the first Jamaican Bobsled team who are coached by an ex bobsledder called Irving Blitzer. When the team and Blitzer reach Calgary they realise that Blitzer is unliked by a lot of people. This is because when he was bobsledding he hid weights in the front of his sled so they would go faster. This is because he has too greater desire to win, he doesn't enjoy the sport unless he is on the winners podium. But he was caught and banned.

Another form of cheating in my opinion is diving in football. Players dive to gain an advantage for their team, but why should they gain advantage if the player tackling them has done nothing wrong. It is starting to get out of hand and more serious punishments should be put into place to prevent players diving. From my point of view, football is getting far to boring to watch, with stoppages every 2 minutes. It is blatent cheating and should be cut out of the game.

To the right is a picture of Tom Williams a Harlequins rugby player. You may notice that is mouth is bleeding, but is it really? He has bitten a blood capsule so that he can be replaced. Harlequins had used all of their substitutions and the only way to replace a player would have been with a blood injury. They were behind in the match and wanted to bring a kicker on to see if they could get back into it in the last few minutes. Tom Williams was replaced and Harlequins still lost. He was also caught on camera and a full scale investigation begun. This isn't the only example of cheating in rugby, it has been said that blood capsules have been used for years and years, also it is said that players punch and cut their own players so they are able to be substituted. This is just the first case to be caught. This is not in the spirit of the game at all, once again it is all about the desire to win being greater than the desire to play your sport and have a good time.

There are many more cases in sport involving cheating, for example match fixing in football and race fixing in horse racing. The most notable people involved are Bruce Grobelaar in football and Kieren Fallon in horse racing. Click here to read more on the innocent Kieren Fallon's story.

Cheating will always happen because there are always people with too greater desire to win and any cost. Personally I would not want to win due to cheating. It would still feel like a loss. Some people cheat when they have no need to, they have a very good chance of winning without cheating. It's pointless and people who cheat need to realise that.