Ryan Lochte joins list of greatest sports hoaxes and scams of all time
The continuing saga of Ryan Lochte’s robbery/not-a-robbery in Rio continued Thursday, with police in Brazil saying he lied about being held up at gunpoint. You can read all the details here. But Lochte’s story brings to mind some great hoaxes and scams in sports history. A look at few of the highlights:
The curious case of Sidd Finch
In its April 1, 1985, issue, Sports Illustrated ran a story by George Plimpton about an amazing pitching prospect for the New York Mets who could throw a fastball almost 170 miles per hour. SI and Plimpton figured that fans would realize it was a joke. But a lot of them didn’t and tried to find out where Finch was pitching so they could see him. Two weeks later, the magazine revealed it was an April Fool’s gag.
Rosie Ruiz wins the Boston Marathon
Experts were stunned when the first woman to cross the finish line at the 1980 Boston Marathon was an unknown runner named Rosie Ruiz. Not on anyone’s list of pre-race favorites, reporters scrambled to find out more. And then they started to notice some problems. For one thing, she wasn’t breathing heavily or sweating at the finish. She also didn’t know what her interval times in the race were, or even what an interval was. Also, she appeared to be sort of out of shape for a person who was able to run 26 miles. Turns out she didn’t. Spectators came forward to say she ran out of the crowd and onto the course about half a mile before the finish line. And so ended the career of marathon champion Rosie Ruiz.
Danny Almonte leads Bronx team to Little League World Series
Danny Almonte was a pitcher for a Little League team in the Bronx who, in comparison to his teammates, looked about 7 feet tall. He also had a mid-70s fastball and led his team to the Little League World Series, becoming a media sensation when he pitched a perfect game. There was one problem: LIttle League players have to be 12 or under and Almonte was 14. League officials were irate and erased his team, and his perfect game, from the record books.
The 2000 Spanish Paralympic basketball team is filled with ringers
In the 2000 Paralympics basketball competition, Spain cruised to the title in the intellectually disabled category, in which players were supposed to have been tested and shown to have an IQ below 70. Two weeks after Spain won, one of those players told a Spanish magazine that at least one player did not qualify. After an investigation, it turned out that 10 of the 12 members of the team had IQs above 70, and in some cases, well above. The players were forced to return their gold medals. Too bad there isn’t a “morally disabled” category, because they could easily get those medals back there.
Manti Te’o’s fake girlfriend
It was a story made for a Hallmark Channel movie. Manti Te’o, a Notre Dame star and Heisman Trophy candidate, and his long-distance online relationship with his Stanford girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. The story took a sad turn when Te’o revealed that Kekua had died on Sept. 11, 2012, after a long battle with leukemia, but that he had promised Kekua that he would keep playing, even if something happened to her. But it turns out that there was no Lennay Kekua. Reporters began digging and noticed there were no records of a student by that name at Stanford and that the photos Te’o had shown of Kekua were actually of a former high school classmate of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a longtime friend of Te’o’s. Notre Dame issued a statement saying that “Manti had been the victim of what appears to be a hoax in which someone using the fictitious name Lennay Kekua apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia.” On Feb. 1, 2013, Tuiasosopo confessed to the hoax, saying he had fallen in love with Te’o and assumed the Kekua identity as an escape.
Sylvester Carmouche wins in a fog
Louisiana’s Delta Downs racetrack was enveloped by fog one day in January 1990 when Sylvester Carmouche rode Landing Officer, a 23-1 long shot, to victory. . And it wasn’t just any victory: Landing Officer won by 24 lengths. It wasn’t long, however, before the other jockeys in the race realized that they never saw Carmouche pass them. It turned out that Carmouche took advantage of the heavy fog and rode the horse across the infield and cut back onto the course just before the finish line. Carmouche was banned from riding for 10 years.
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