Is the Lance Armstrong scandal the biggest scandal in the history of sport?

And another:

Munich Olympics Israeli Hostage Masssacre. My vote for the biggest.

If you define biggest it has to be wide reaching and most people do know Lance Armstrong but few follow cycling and care about that sport.

1919 White Sox scandal, Mcguire/Sosa and the steroid era in baseball, Pete Rose gambling on baseball, even the Tanya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan scandal were bigger media driven stories. It probably ranks with Ben Johnson and the 1950's college basketball point shaving scandal. So its definitely in the top 10. The 1972 Olympic Basketball final is in their too.

What other ones can you think of? Dave Schultz the Olympic wrestling star that was murdered by John Du Pont? Rosey Ruiz winning the Boston Marathon?

I think if that all the drug test results from the 1984 Olympic Games were made public at that time that would have ranked as one of the biggest scandals.

Mike Tyson biting off Holyfield's ear was worth a week of scandal.

The Rae Laruetthe trial was a huge national story at that time.

But I don't think any scandal can top Penn State. I hope nothing ever will.

If a movie is made based on a sports scandal than that is evidence enough.

Movies (even if just TV movies) have been made about the Munich terrorists, 1919 White Sox, Harding/Kerrigan, and I hear Al Pacino is set to portray Joe Paterno in an upcoming flick.

The biggest controversies are fixed games.

As for records - McGuire, Sosa et al ended the relevance of all baseball records.

Records do not matter in the NFL, everyone in 'roids.

Cycling will survive. Track would be devastated by Bolt. I hope he is clean but never say never.

I wonder about some of the 90s-00s track distance records.

Not sure since it has been long suspected that he and so many other cyclists were doping.

Penn State is less of a sports scandal to me than a complete failure of a university.

The Black Sox scandal is pretty big. Changed how major league baseball is governed.

Army cheating scandal in the 50s was pretty big.

SMU football scandal pretty big.

Is the SMU frickin college football scandal really on the same level as say Lance, Ben or the East Germans, history wise, world wise?????

Really????

King Kong wrote:

No, because anybody who is interested enough about cycle racing to give a damn, knows that all the top cyclists of his era were also on something or other and few bother about cycling as a sport anyway.

Now if Bolt was caught cheating - it�d be the end of athletics as we know it today.

No it wouldn't. Cycling went from one corruption scandal to the next and nothing happened. The federation was fixing their biggest race and nothing happened.

1/3 of the sport's podiums were very likely doping and they did nothing. Bolt's not testing positive, ever. Diack's stated this.

Armstrong wasn't trying to win. He was crushing it.

jsquire wrote:

1919 World Series, 1950s college basketball point shaving were bigger. At least Armstrong was trying to win.

NateBP wrote:

Yeah, the 1919 World Series

There is not much "World" in your local sports.

YAmaha wrote:

Penn State, perhaps?

In terms of human tragedy, "second" to Munich's hostages.

The worst part, by far, are the people that protected Paterno's org long after the allegations finally went public. Sick f!ckers put destroying lives far behind winning football games.

photofinish wrote:

1919 World Series was a much bigger scandal than Lance or Penn State, even though it took much longer for the news to spread back then.

In no particular order

USA

The above

Jerry Sandusky

Pete Rose

O J Simpson

BALCO

World

1978 World Cup semi-final (under-reported)

Juventus, Lazio and Fiorentina relegated in 2006 for match-fixing

Ben Johnson

Current FIFA scandal

Festina

I'm not sure if you can include the disappearance of Shergar as a scandal but it certainly received publicity across the world.