Top 10 Olympic Fails of All Time

The nation stood agog during the 1996 Olympics, when Kerry Strug stuck her landing on a broken leg: such courage, spirit, and Olympic excellence is inspiring. Still, for every instance of grit, there are several cases where Olympians acted childish, broke the rules, or just plain choked. You decide which of these have the ancient Greeks rolling over in the their graves.

10. Alicia Sacramone (2008)

Boo hoo! Those Chinese gymnasts were being mean to me! That was Sacramone’s excuse for stinking in her gymnastics routine, virtually handing the gold to the Chinese team. Sacramone fell on both the bar and the beam; she later confessed that nerves got to her, but the initial story blaming the Chinese team, even if true, is powerfully lame.

9. Zola Budd and Mary Decker (1984)

What does it sound like when two runners crash into each other? If you were Zola Budd in the 1984 Olympics, it sounded like an angry crowd calling for your blood. Budd and Decker collided on the women’s 3000 meter race, which led to a hip injury for Decker that prevented her from finishing. Though Budd finished 7th overall, that didn’t stop the crowd from vigorously booing her.

8. Władysław Kozakiewicz’s Rude Elbow (1980)

Despite proving his superiority to an unsympathetic Moscow crowd, Polish pole-vaulter Władysław Kozakiewicz showed his defiance by doing the Italian elbow gesture, which is roughly equivalent to flipping the bird. Great job, Wladyslaw: you managed to take the gold and some of the dignity of the Olympic games!

7. Andreea Răducan Fails Drug Test (2000)

Andreea Răducan took the gold in the all-around gymnastics, but it was promptly stripped after she tested positive for pseudoephedrine. Though her victory was short-lived, her infamy as the very first Olympic athlete to be retroactively disqualified for doping will live on forever.

6. Everyone is doping! (2004)

Learning the wrong lesson from the last Olympic games, dozens of athletes juiced up for the ‘04 games. Athletes from Kenya, Spain, Hungary, India, and many other countries all tested positive for performance enhancing substances. Even the horses were ‘roiding up, as an Irish showjumper horse named Waterford Crystal tested positive for performance enhancing substances.

5. Weightlifter Janos Baranyai pops elbow (2008)

Holy crap, that looked painful. Hungarian Weightlifter Janos Baranyai’s hopes for Olympic glory were lost when his elbow popped from it socket during a deadlift. His face was contorted in agony, which you’d know if you were even looking at his face, and not his limp forearm hanging the wrong way.

4. Tonya Harding (1994)

If there were a medal for being pathetic, Tonya Harding would have gotten the Gold. Unfortunately, she wanted one for figure skating. She wanted it so badly that she had her scary-looking ex-husband club teammate Nancy Kerrigan’s knees to eliminate any competition. When she actually hit the ice, she was a mess: she stopped in the middle of her routine to beg judges for a do-over, whining over an improperly laced skate.

3. Greg Louganis whacks his head on the diving board (1988)

The scene was set at the ‘88 Seoul Olympics for diver Greg Louganis to bring home the gold, but not without Seoul getting a peice of him first. During the preliminary rounds, Louganis met with a little resistance from the lower diving board on the way down. A loud thud could be heard when the back of his head hit the board, and the crowd held their breath for a moment before Louganis came up again.

2. Spanish Teams’ Racist Photos (2008)

Ching chong! Me rike flied lice! If you think that’s offensive, it’s likely that you haven’t seen the photos of the Spanish Basketball and Tennis teams pulling their eyes to make them appear slanted. No one really knows what possessed both Spanish teams to take photos in such poor taste, but at least we now know when to expect all the booing.

1. Jesse Owens beats Hitler’s Ubermench (1936)

Adolf Hitler had one of his biggest embarrassments at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He wanted his Teutonic supermen to sweep the games, but the biggest black spot on his plans was an African-American runner named Jesse Owens. Owens kicked some German ass, taking four medals that year. More than that, though, Owens blew away racist Nazi propaganda, proving that theories of racial superiority are baseless. Also, that Hitler was a stupid dick.