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Ibragim Samadov competed ahead of his more deserving teammate Orazdurdiyev, but didn’t come home with any kind of medal, mainly because he was a sore loser. One of the other weightlifters competing was Pyrros Dimas, who had competed for Albania until 1990. In February of 1991, Dimas slipped across the border into Greece and was granted Greek citizenship. Samadov lifted the same 370 total KG that Dimas and Poland’s Krzysztof Siemion managed, but lost to both in a tie-breaker based on body weight. The crowd had cheered on Dimas, and had heckled Samadov. As Samadov was about to be handed his bronze medal on the podium, he refused to lean forward to allow the medal to be put around his neck. He then left the podium. The walkout was considered a slap in the face by the Olympic officials, who disqualified Samadov, and kicked him out of the Olympic Village. Samadov wrote a letter the next day to the International Weightlifting president, explaining that he wasn’t feeling well, and that is why he left the podium. The excuse didn’t wash.

1976 East German Swimmers

The East German women won eleven of thirteen races in 1976, with Kornelia Ender winning four gold medals. But it turned out the East German women were ahead of the curve in using performance-enhancing drugs. And to be fair, North Americans were soon in on the trick, with Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson getting caught in 1988 after winning the 100-meter. He tested positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol. Unless these athletes were whipping up potions in their dorms, there was a conspiracy of sorts that enabled them to get the drugs. You don’t have to have a conspiracy to cheat, but it certainly helps.

CONCLUSION:

#25

Olympic gold medalist in women’s 100-meter hides a secret

Most of the conspiracies and lies that people had to keep secret were for a short time. Perhaps Tris Speaker had to worry about having fixed a game during the 1919 season for seven years, since he knew there was a paper trail and evidence of his involvement. But seven years is still just seven years. It’s not a lifetime. Perhaps the members of the 1951 New York Giants conspired to hide their secret sign stealing for fifty years. Eventually, it was revealed. There was one athlete who competed for so long and so well that she was enshrined in her sport’s Hall of Fame. However, that person had to keep a secret that would have destroyed reputations and possibly caused her accomplishments to be wiped from the record books. That athlete had to bring in at least one other person to help ensure the secret. You bet it was a conspiracy. And Stella Walsh would have gone to the grave with her secret, had she not been gunned down by a stray bullet at the age of sixty-nine near her home in Cleveland, Ohio.

The list of Olympic champions in the women’s 100-meter race is filled with some of the greatest female athletes of all time, including Betty Cuthbert, Wilma Rudolph, Evelyn Ashford, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Gail Devers, and Marion Jones. A few may have cheated, possibly getting help from Bay Area lab chemists to alter their bodies, but none had a story like 1936 gold medalist Stella Walsh.

Walsh, born in Poland in April of 1911, moved to the United States when she was less than one year old. She grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and the little girl born Stanislawa Walasievicz became known as Stella Walsh. By 1927, when she was sixteen, she had earned a spot on the American Olympic track and field team. However, since she had been born in Poland, she wasn’t an American citizen, and could not apply for citizenship until 1932, when she turned twenty-one. Walsh began to run for the Polish national athletic team. She was one of the most well-known female athletes in the late 1920s, winning sprints and long jumps in both America and Poland.

In the 1932 Olympic games, she represented Poland. She matched the then-world record times in both the heats and the semi-finals of the 100-meter race. She also competed in the discus throw, finishing sixth. These games,