Tour de France cheats? What about the Maradonas, Klinsmanns and Olympic rule-benders?

The continuing controversy around doping in the Tour de France has, sadly, brought cheating back to the forefront of sports headlines. Pro cycling has been getting a caning from anyone and everyone, perhaps deservedly, but that sport is not alone in having fallen prey to cheats.

'It is easy to figure out why the talentless and inept chose the easy path to success, but it is much harder to explain why champions do it'

In fact, doping seems like a fairly mundane and boring way to break the rules compared to some of the stuff that goes on in other sports.

Mention the hand of God to a football fan over the age of 30 and chances are they won’t immediately think of Michelangelo’s fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Instead they will almost certainly recall Diego Maradona’s dodgy goal in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final between England and Argentina. Their viewpoint may differ, depending on their national allegiance, but it was a goal that all will remember.

Maradona’s effort was possibly one of the most notorious examples of cheating in football, but it was not unique. In qualifying for Italia 90, Chile’s Roberto Rojas feigned being hit by a flare in a coordinated effort to get the match against Brazil awarded to Chile by default. Officials figured out the conspiracy and banned Chile from the 1994 World Cup.