6 Scandals That Rocked the Winter Olympics

Since 1924, the Winter Olympic Games have served as an international stage to showcase some of the world’s finest talent in cold-weather sports. Though the Olympic Games have long been seen as a symbolic, peaceful convening of international powers, this has by no means kept the Games free of controversy.

From Machiavellian cheating schemes to Olympic Villages later repurposed as prisons, the Winter Olympic Games have always (much like their warm-weathered counterpart) never been able to skirt scandal entirely. 

1. The 1968 Women’s Luge Disqualification 
2. Lake Placid’s Winter Olympics Village Reopens as a Prison 
3. The Harding-Kerrigan Scandal 
4. Surya Bonaly’s Backflip 
5. Charles Jewtraw’s Controversial Victory 
6. Ice Dancing Judging Scandal 

The 1968 Women’s Luge Disqualification 

During the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, three female East German luge competitors were disqualified after it was discovered the steel runners on their sleds had been heated, a prohibited luge practice that allows sleds to move at higher speeds with easier control.

The first Olympic Games following the division of Germany, wherein East and West competed on separate teams, East German officials vehemently denied the accusations of cheating, asserting their athletes’ unceremonious disqualifications were part of a West Germany-led campaign to undermine East Germany’s debut at the Games.

Amid heightening Cold War-era tensions, East Germany viewed their competing at the 1968 Winter Olympics Games as an international stage on which it could fully assert their sovereignty as the newly established communist state. 

After East Germans Ortrun Enderlein, Anna-Maria Müller, and Angela Knösel were disqualified, Italian Erika Lechner, and West Germans Christa Schmuck and Angelika Dünhaupt were awarded the gold, silver, and bronze medals, respectively. 

Far from the last cheating scandal East Germany would face at the Olympic Games, the luge imbroglio at the 1968 Games was a sort of canary in a coal mine for East Germany’s nascent reputation as a nation known for widespread, systemic cheating at the Olympics. 

Lake Placid’s Winter Olympics Village Reopens as a Prison 

For decades, the hosting of either Olympic Games has become inextricably associated with the construction of enormously expensive, largely impractical sports facilities that routinely fall into disarray following the Games’ conclusion.

In an effort to mitigate this, the International Olympic Committee struck a deal with its 1980 Winter Games host city, Lake Placid, to reopen the newly constructed Olympic Village as a federal penitentiary following the Games. With this caveat, Lake Placid was able to utilize taxpayer funds to construct the Village while repurposing other facilities from when it had hosted the games in 1932. 

Though its construction came with some controversy, Lake Placid’s Olympic Village officially reopened as a federal correctional institution in September 1980. Known today as Federal Correctional Institution, Ray Brook, the prison remains open as a medium security detention facility to this day, housing around 800 inmates. 

The Harding-Kerrigan Scandal 

On January 6, 1994, 24-year-old American figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was assaulted by a masked man while on her way to the locker rooms at what is now known as Huntington Place in Detroit, Michigan. After striking Kerrigan just above her right knee with a metal baton, the assailant fled the arena with the help of a getaway driver.

Leaving Kerrigan with a severely bruised knee, the Olympic figure skater was forced to withdraw from the upcoming 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Within just a few days, Detroit police were able to identify Kerrigan’s attacker as Shane Stint, a security guard from Arizona. 

Once Stint was in police custody, he quickly confessed to carrying out the attack, alleging he’d been hired to carry it out by Shawn Eckardt and Jeff Gilooly, the bodyguard and ex-husband of Kerrigan’s rival, figure skater Tonya Harding. Gilooly eventually admitted to orchestrating the attack in hopes of eliminating Kerrigan from competing in the upcoming Championships and Winter Olympics, giving Harding a critical edge in both competitions.

Gilooly, Eckardt, and Stint each pled guilty to their respective charges before making it to trial, each receiving prison sentences ranging from 18 to 24 months. 

Though Harding originally claimed she’d had no knowledge of the plot, it was later revealed she’d had much more information than she’d originally led authorities to believe, resulting in her being convicted of hindering the prosecution and a subsequent lifetime ban from U.S. figure skating. 

Surya Bonaly’s Backflip 

Often one of the few Black figure skaters appearing at national competitions, French figure skater Surya Bonaly became the kind of role model she’d desperately sought as a young skater. Following a storied and successful career as a competitive figure skater, Bonaly arrived at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, knowing they’d likely be her last.

After injuring her groin earlier in the competition, Bonaly came to the ice with a sense of liberation, content with the knowledge that while she had no chance of medaling, she could give the judges a performance to remember. 

After stumbling when attempting a triple lutz, Bonaly quickly regained her composure and kept skating, casually performing a backflip and landing on one blade, making her the first and only skater to successfully do so in competition. Ironically, Bonaly later said she had performed the backflip in part because her groin injuries made standard turns and jumps impossible.

Though the stunned judges rewarded her with a paltry score, Bonaly’s performance wowed the audience and solidified her place in figure skating history. 

Charles Jewtraw’s Controversial Victory 

On January 26, 1924, speed skater Charles Jewtraw took first place in the 500-metre race, becoming the first American in history to bring home a gold medal from the Winter Olympic Games. Born in upstate New York, Jewtraw had actually retired from speed skating before he was approached to compete for the United States at the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France.

Finishing with a time of 44 seconds flat, Jewtraw’s victory was a huge upset, beating out favorites from countries like Norway and Sweden. The first-ever Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Games, were beset with problems from the start, chief among them the unreliability of handtiming in the cold, which many attribute to how Jewtraw was able to pull off his miraculous victory after retiring and largely failing to train leading up to the Games.

Following his landmark victory, Jewtraw returned home to Lake Placid before retiring to Palm Beach, Florida. 

Ice Dancing Judging Scandal 

During the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, a Canadian ice dancing judge, Jean Senft, surreptitiously recorded an incriminating conversation with a Ukrainian judge that provided evidence the competition was predetermined.

Already a subject of controversy for its vague scoring system and subjectivity, the 1998 judging controversy brought ice dancing back in the limelight as it fought to maintain its Olympic legitimacy. Often described as a sport whose victories are decided more by politics than by skill, ice dancing has frequently found itself at the center of varying cheating scandals since its induction into the Winter Olympic Games in the latter half of the 20th century. 

While the Ukrainian judge, Yuri Balkov, received a one-year suspension for his actions, Senft was also hit with a six-month suspension, and no official changes were made to the competition’s final results. 

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