The 10 Biggest Doping Scandals In Sport!

10. Justin Gatlin

Justin Gatlin (born February 10, 1982) is an American sprinter, who is an Olympic gold medalist in the 100-meter dash. His 100m personal best is 9.74 seconds. He is a twice World indoor champion in the 60-meter dash.

Twice banned for testing positive before returning to sprinting and running faster than ever. The US sprinter almost beat Usain Bolt at this year’s World Championships.

9. Floyd Landis

Floyd Landis (born October 14, 1975) is a retired American professional road racing cyclist. Landis at first appeared to be the winner of the2006 Tour de France, before testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. 

Landis was considered the biggest drugs cheat in cycling until his predecessor as Tour de France champion, Lance Armstrong, was finally exposed. The 2006 Tour winner tested positive for an unusually high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone and was banned for two years.

8. The Mitchell Report

 The Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball, informally known as the "Mitchell Report," is the result of former DemocraticUnited States Senator from Maine George J. Mitchell's 21-month investigation into the use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone(HGH) in Major League Baseball (MLB).

Former United States Senator George Mitchell’s inquiry into widespread drug-taking in Major League Baseball found that during the random testing period in 2003, up to 7 per cent of players tested positive for steroid use. In all, 89 former and current MLB players - including legends such as Barry Bonds - were named in the report.

7. The Festina affair

The Festina affair was a series of doping scandals, doping investigations and confessions by riders to doping that occurred during and after the1998 Tour de France. The affair began when a large haul of doping products was found in a car of the Festina cycling team just before the start of the race.

The discovery of a cache of doping products in the possession of Bruno Roussel's Festina cycling team during the 1998 Tour de France was the first great drugs scandal of modern cycling. The affair led to the formation of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

6. Operacion Puerto

Operación Puerto (Operation Mountain Pass) is the code name of a Spanish Police operation against the doping network of DoctorEufemiano Fuentes, started in May 2006, which resulted in a scandal that involved several of the world's most famous cyclists at the time.

Already a huge doping scandal - the name was bestowed on the case by Spanish police who were targeting the doping ring of doctor Eufemiano Fuentes (pictured) - this could yet be the most explosive ever if an appeal against the destruction of blood bags by a Spanish judge is upheld. Cyclists named in the case included Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich and Alberto Contador (the latter was ultimately cleared of involvement in the affair by the Spanish courts), and there are suggestions many other high-profile sportspeople could be implicated.

5. The BALCO scandal

The BALCO scandal is a scandal involving the use of banned, performance-enhancing substances by professional athletes. 

Britain’s Dwain Chambers (pictured), Olympic sprint champion Marion Jones and baseball great Barry Bonds were among those found to have been customers of the steroid-producing Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative.

4. Diego Maradona

Diego Armando Maradona (born 30 October 1960) is a retired Argentine professional footballer. He has served as a manager and coach at other clubs as well as the national team of Argentina. Many in the sport, including football writers, former players, current players and football fans, regard Maradona as the greatest football player of all time.

From the mid-1980s until 2004 Diego Maradona was addicted to cocaine. He allegedly began using the drug in Barcelona in 1983. By the time he was playing for Napoli he had a regular addiction, which began to interfere with his ability to play football. Over the years following his retirement his health seriously deteriorated. On 4 January 2000, while vacationing in Punta del Este, Uruguay, Maradona had to be rushed to the emergency room of a local clinic. In a press conference, doctors stated that it was detected heart muscle damage due to "an underlying health issue". It was later known that traces of cocaine were found in his blood and Maradona had to explain the circumstances to the police.

One of the greatest footballers of all time was kicked out of the 1994 World Cup after testing positive for ephedrine.

3. Ben Johnson

Benjamin Sinclair "Ben" Johnson, (born December 30, 1961) is a Jamaican-born Canadian former sprinter, who won two Olympicbronze medals and an Olympic gold medal, which was later rescinded. He set consecutive 100 metres world records at the 1987 World Championships in Athletics and the 1988 Summer Olympics, but he was disqualified for doping, losing the Olympic title and both records.

The most reviled drugs cheat in athletics. The Canadian was found to have taken steroids to win the 1988 Olympic 100 metres title in a world-record time of 9.79secs. Ultimately, six of the eight finalists from that race tested positive for banned drugs or were implicated in a doping scandal in their careers.

2. Lance Armstrong

Lance Edward Armstrong (born September 18, 1971) is an American former professional road racing cyclist. He is the 1993 Elite Men's Road Race World Champion, and he had won the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005, but was stripped of his Tour de France victories in 2012 after a protracted doping scandal.

Prior to the current scandal engulfing athletics, the revelation by the US Anti-Doping Agency that Armstrong had cheated his way to all seven of his Tour de France titles was the most shocking doping story in sport. Also involved unproven - and vehemently denied - allegations of a cover-up involving cycling's world governing body.

Armstrong continued to deny the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs for four more years, describing himself as the most tested athlete in the world. From his return to cycling in the fall of 2008 through March 2009, Armstrong claims to have submitted to 24 unannounced drug tests by various anti-doping authorities.

1. Athletics doping cover-up

 Bigger than anything that has come before due to senior figures in the sport - including former IAAF president Lamine Diack - being charged with criminal offences after allegedly taking of bribes from Russian athletes, who were found to be part of a state-sponsored doping programme that "sabotaged" London 2012. Russia became the first country suspended for drugs offences.

"Lamine Diack was responsible for organizing and enabling the conspiracy and corruption that took place in the IAAF. He sanctioned and appears to have had personal knowledge of the fraud and the extortion of athletes carried out by the actions of the informal illegitimate governance structure he put in place."