Is it me, or has sport (in general) suddenly become the place where anything goes? For memory over the last few months;

F1: Renault asking drivers to crash

Football: Chelsea's ban on transfers, Arsenal's Eduardo's diving.

Rugby: Bath "bloodgate"

Athletics: Half the Jamaican Sprint team taking drugs

Even Cricket over the summer with Ponting accusing the English team of "pretty ordinary behaviour" which in cricketing terms is a strong as calling your opponents cheating f&^5ers.

So, is anything we see on the telly real anymore? Was it always like this?

Was it always like this
yes

Bloodgate was harlequins, Bath was "Drug"gate.

I am sure history is littered with similar cheats.

That American female sprinter.
Grobelaar letting goals in.
Countless football players giving away penos at certain times.
Refs taking bungs
Cyclists ramming themselves with drugs
Weightlifters ramming themselves with even more drugs.
Eastern European athletes almost exclusively being on drugs.
Boxers throwing matches.

Sorry backhander, bad typing there was supposed to be an "and" in between those two

No problems nick. Sorry to be a pedant.
These two occurances are disgusting and have damaged the name of the sport I love for a very long time. The way that DRs old cronies (Moore etc) are rallying around him and attempting to further villify Williams to take the pressure off him is a disgrace. Ban the f***er for life.

And of course there are those American WWF wrestlers – I am sure they fix the results…

Sure didn't Leicester win the Heineken Cup one year, off the back of some cheating from Neil Back?

rose-tinted hindsight I think, although as the stakes get higher the behaviour's likely to exaggerate

"pretty ordinary behaviour" in cricket is fairly well-established – like the bodyline ashes series, whenever that was

footy – diving's just the "new" cheating; previously it was kicking players off the pitch (which is how diving came about I suppose)

rugby – not my sport but, in the 2 games I played aged about 17 I saw enough "dirty" play to convince me that it's rife. What's so bad about feigning injury in a game that seems largely devoted to inflicting injury?

F1 – I've a feeling that gamesmanship is WELL established there. It's just the getting caught bit. All those "racing incidents" & pitlane near misses …

Oh' and Tom Simpson (et al) ?

Neil Back, cheat? never 😀
IMHO skullduggery at the bottom of a ruck is one thing, popping blood capsules in your mouth is quite another. If williams wasn't such a poof, he'd have bitten his lip open.
This really needed addressing, the amount of props "injured" when their scrum was being pushed around the park was so obviously cheating.

To my taste, there is a difference between cheating to make yourself better, and pretending to be hurt when you're not.

Diving and blood capsules are unbelievably pathetic. Taking drugs is merely pretty pathetic.

I can understand why anyone would want to stand on a podium with everyone thinking they're incredibly fast and gifted. It's sad and hollow if that's done with drugs, but at least you get where you want to be in sporting terms.

Diving just makes everyone think you cry like a girl and ought to stick to netball when actually it didn't really hurt. 🙂

I think the solution to feigning injury in order to be substituted is easy – make that (any substituted) player miss the next game (or 2 or whatever)

Diving in footy is harder because they generally don't want to be taken off. If the dive is "spotted" then some form of punishment is easy enough but who's to judge – the lone ref there & then, or by video afterwards ? I reckon a video ref for big moments in big games – maybe allow each team 3 challenges per match like in tennis. If the review shows a chaet, award the same result but the other way (penalty against Arsenal in Eduardo's case, for example).
Rolling around after the fact – just force the game to continue unless the manager requests a time-out (of which he has an allowance per match). Stops all the "fair play" morality bollocks about the team in possession stopping open play just because someone's crying.

How about, when someone goes down injured in football, the player that allegedly fouled them should have the option of a free stamp on the player who went down, but then be automatically sent off and banned from the next game?

People would stop diving pretty sharpish I reckon. 🙂

Diving and blood capsules are unbelievably pathetic

And don't get me started on lenses…

The diving one is easy to fix
Just make it OK to take someone ankles out

As a plus side, strikers will develop better skills when running at defenders – everyone's a winner

Old sporting adage: "If you ain't cheating you ain't trying". Sad but true.

While we're at it, could we add landmines and grenades to spice up cricket?

Cricket doesn't need spicing up – you are simply not intelligent enough to understand it.

😉

I understand it, its just dull. 😀

Then you don't understand it 😉

This could go on…

This could go on…

I think that's his point, not yours

It's both out points 🙂

Cricket, a sport so intricate and fascinating that many people watch only one day of each game.

I don't understand it, but there are many things I do not understand, including morris dancing, and the reproductive habits of ducks.

any sport where pretty much all of the participants can stand still at the same time just does not do it for me. To each his own though.

many people watch only one day of each game.

Many people can only afford to pay for one day*

*Assuming it is a multi-day match.

i ride motorbike trials and at some events you have to observe yourself on a few sections. The cheating is unbelievable if people are prepared to cheat in tiny competions like this then they will cheat at anything.

I understand it, its just dull.

I concur 😉

i've seen mediocre cyclists drinking cough mixture for the pseudo ephedrine so they can be 29th instead of 31st in some regional hairy leg race

as long as sport is done by people, there will be cheating, isn;t it **** obvious?

there will be cheating, isn;t it **** obvious?

That's partly my point, I accept that there's probably always been "gamesmanship" going on, but it's different now, more blatant, more in your face, it's as if these people are saying "So what…"

its not different now, you just know abou more cases due to the misinformation superhighway

I think it's worse now because of the amount of money involved.
More individuals are in sport for profit rather than the, well sport.
As scaredypants said, the stakes are high.

It's called 'professionalism'.

As an atheist I don't quote many things from the Bible, but one that seems to be holding true is;

"The love of money is the root of all evil" and by the way, the quote is correct.

And for all those people that think Tom Simpson was 'cheating', he wasn't. Unfortunately amphetamines and alcohol were widely used on the tour in those days and everyone knew about it. What Tom Simpson did might have been wrong but it was not illegal.

"they are only cheating themselves"

true on any level imo, even if it does make them a lot lot richer :s