Another 12 months, one other raft of sporting dishonest scandals for our annual anti‑Spoty awards. Where the BBC Sports Personality ceremony this week rewards the cream of athletic endeavour, the Guardian as a substitute shines a light-weight on the darkest corners of sporting skulduggery.
Qin Siyue and new Baduk guidelines
After the troubles last year with Xiangqi (AKA Chinese chess), in 2025 it was the flip of Weiqi (recognized in the west as Go), whose sedate world was rocked first by information that the 19-year-old Chinese prodigy Qin Siyue had been rumbled in the ninth spherical of the Chinese Team Championship – really performed final December, although for a pair of months Go managed to (satirically) cease the information rising – for utilizing AI and a hidden telephone to plot her strikes.
Then in January a diplomatic storm erupted over the ultimate of the Baduk world championship (baduk being the Korean identify for weiqi), wherein Korea’s Byun Sang-il beat China’s Ke Jie due to the complicated and controversial mid-tournament introduction of new scoring guidelines.
“This has been a huge psychological trauma for me,” Ke stated. “I felt like I was trapped in endless darkness.” Ke added that in the moments that adopted his being reported – for the crime of failing to position a stone on the lid of a bowl – “I heard a breaking sound. I don’t know if it was me who broke, or Go itself.”
Go is an obscure pastime in Britain however enormous in China, which boasts 17 of the world’s high 20 and a whole lot of full-time professionals, if one fewer than there was a 12 months in the past after Qin was stripped of her rating and banned from all occasions organised by her nationwide affiliation for eight years.
Norwegian ski leap fits
In Norway snowboarding isn’t only a widespread pastime, it’s the nationwide sport, which is what propels the males’s massive hill ski‑leaping occasion at the Nordic world championships in Trondheim into the stratosphere (off an enormous ramp).
A scandal embroiled 5 Norwegian athletes, two of them Olympic gold medallists, and three group officers, all of them males who, like so many males over historical past, have been frightened about the stiffness of their groin space. This led to them utilizing a strengthened thread to enhance the crotches of their ski fits, with the goal of boosting its aerodynamics.
These modifications have been secretly filmed, and their existence confirmed when the fits – actual circumstances unsure – have been actually torn open by suspicious organisers. “What we have done is manipulate or modify the jump suits in such a way that it violates the regulations,” the team coach Magnus Brevig admitted. “It was a deliberate act. Therefore, it is cheating. It was a joint decision. I should have stopped it. We regret it like dogs. I’m terribly sorry. We became blind in this World Cup bubble of ours and went way over the line.”
Not for the first time, maybe: reacting to the scandal, the retired Norwegian jumper Daniel-André Tande stated he had achieved it too. “I have cheated several times,” he stated. The retired two‑time world record-holder Remen Evensen additionally piped up: “If wearing a suit that’s a little too big [is cheating] then yes, I’ve cheated,” he stated. “The norm in sport has been that if you don’t get caught, you haven’t cheated.”
Meanwhile in vaguely associated groin‑space enchancment information: Juan Bernabe, coach of the eagle mascot of the Italian soccer membership Lazio, fired in January for posting boastful photographs of his anatomy online after present process penile prosthesis surgical procedure. “I had surgery to increase my sexual performance because I am very active,” he defined.
Waxy pool balls
It is with a mixture of excruciating awkwardness and a measure of quiet pleasure that we segue from the topic of penile enlargement to that of males waxing their balls. In July 128 of the world’s main cue-wielders, from 40 nations, headed for the world pool championship in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to compete for a historic $1m purse, and all of it received a bit messy.
What we all know is that some individuals cheated, that dishonest isn’t allowed, and in addition that it hasn’t been punished, which all appears a bit of bit awkward. Waxgate, because it inevitably grew to become recognized, began when Aloysius Yapp, the world No 3 who was eradicated disappointingly early by Jeffrey Ignacio of the Philippines, advised on Instagram that his opponent had been utilizing wax to vary the behaviour of the cue ball (extra possible a silicone lubricant, sprayed first on to a glove worn by the participant after which smeared over the cue ball throughout play). Ignacio’s response? “Nobody should make excuses after they lose.”
Eklent Kaci, who nearly misplaced an arm in a automotive accident in 2023 and made all of it the method to the ultimate in 2024, misplaced in the spherical of 32 in opposition to Patric Gonzales, additionally of the Philippines, and went a bit additional. “I think the cue ball was waxed real bad,” he stated. “I had too many over‑draw shots … missed lots of shots by a mile, out of position totally sometimes. It has happened many times in many tournaments, where lots of players have complained about it and no one has gotten punished.” He additionally complained about individuals “massaging that cue ball like it’s a just-born baby”. Gonzales’s response? “The accusation is bullshit.”
Various different gamers received concerned, with claims, counter‑claims and denials rolling round like, nicely, overlubricated balls on contemporary baize. Dennis Orcollo, one other Fillipino skilled, responded: “There’s no rules about wax, so that’s why they can use [it]. It’s not really fair blaming the players using it. You have to make rules. That’s my opinion. Whoever runs the tournament, you should implement rules. Like, you cannot wipe the cue ball. To be honest it’s a very [big] advantage.”
At which level the World Pool Association waded in, asserting that truly it already had guidelines. “It has come to [our] attention that certain athletes have been waxing balls during matches. It has also been suggested that some players believe there is no rule prohibiting this practice,” the affiliation wrote. “The WPA would like to make it explicitly clear that the waxing of balls is considered a form of cheating and will be dealt with under the WPA’s rules governing unsportsmanlike conduct.”
It has subsequently confirmed this dedication throughout six months of intense and absolutely dedicated silence.
Stone-skimming scandal
More dishonest, alas, and after the 2024 world conker championship was embroiled in accusations of malfeasance, this 12 months it was the world stone skimming championship. Quick conker reminder: David Jakins, AKA King Conker, was cleared of utilizing a metallic reproduction nut, painted to look nearly similar to an actual one, in the conker comp final 12 months. To ensure fair play in this year’s event, organisers have made rivals cross by way of airport-style safety scanners and equipping the “ringmaster” with “a big magnet on a stick”.
Perhaps comparable measures can be launched on Easdale Island, residence of the world stone skimming championship, after Kyle Mathews, the occasion’s “toss master”, stated organisers had recognized a number of suspicious throwers after listening to “rumours and murmurings of nefarious deeds”. They discovered some had indulged in “a little bit of stone doctoring” – both to provide projectiles that have been “suspiciously circular”, or ones with notches inserted to assist grip.
“I contacted the individuals, who admitted their transgressions and I had to disqualify them. To give them their credit, they deeply apologised for bringing the sport into disrepute and accepted disqualification and we accept that’s the end of the matter,” he stated. Indeed, Mathews situated this depressing cloud’s silver lining: “It only shows how keen people are to win this trophy. In many ways, it’s flattering.”
China’s curling group
That wasn’t the solely stone-based dishonest incident this 12 months: the China group prompted consternation at the world curling championship, held in the splendidly named Saskatchewan city of Moose Jaw, after being caught on camera apparently “burning a rock” – intentionally touching it with a brush to vary its path – throughout a knockout win in opposition to Norway, having additionally allegedly been seen “kicking a stone” on their method to beating Germany, all of it notably troubling provided that the China girls’s group had been accused of “dumping all over rocks” throughout their world championship in Korea in March.
Anyway, Norway complained, China insisted they have been harmless, there isn’t a VAR in curling, and the recreation continued with no additional repercussions besides to the sport’s now-tarnished status for honourable apply. The former Canadian roller George Karrys produced an epic, no‑holds‑barred opinion piece about it: “This is beyond terrible. This is a nightmare,” he wrote. “This is, hands down, the worst thing I ever seen or heard of in my 42 years in this sport.” China misplaced in opposition to Switzerland in the semi-finals, and have been thrashed by Canada in the bronze medal recreation.
So, to summarise, that is all terribly miserable. And after conkers and stone skimming, can any oddball British aggressive occasion declare to be fully above‑board? Well, over to tiddlywinks: “Players can bring their own squidger but we have suspicions some competitors break the 51mm maximum width rule, giving them better control of the winks,” Andrew Garrard, secretary of the English Tiddlywinks Association, stated earlier than the nationwide pairs championship in November. “We are checking players’ squidger sizes. Our umpires will be watching closely.”
Bite-size misdemeanours
Unnoticed commentary gaffe of the 12 months: the New Zealand former World Cup winner Ruby Tui, offering evaluation for the BBC on the girls’s Rugby World Cup, who reacted to Axelle Berthoumieu’s bite on Aoife Wafer throughout the quarter-final between France and Ireland by asserting that World Rugby, the sport’s governing physique, would “definitely have an appetite” to flex its punitive muscle tissue.
To be clear, it’s Berthoumieu fairly than Tui who earns the anti‑Spoty nomination, as a result of biting is absolutely not the achieved factor, as her subsequent 12-match ban – diminished to 9 on enchantment – proves.
Related controversies this 12 months: in pointless rugby violence information, the South African lock Eben Etzebeth also got a 12-match ban, for gouging the eye of Wales’s Alex Mann. “I owe everyone an explanation,” he stated. “I made a mistake and I’m willing to serve a suspension which I deserve. I don’t want young kids to think that it’s OK to eye gouge someone, because it’s not, but unfortunately mistakes happen and I made a big one.”
Though don’t make the mistake of seeing this as an admission of deliberate hurt: “It was never intentional. I would never do something like this on purpose.”
Meanwhile in biting sportspeople information, serial offender Luis Suárez was again in the headlines, although this time he did his saliva-exchanging from a distance and was banned for 3 matches in September for spitting at the Seattle Sounders security director Gene Ramirez after his Inter Miami facet misplaced the League Cup ultimate. “It was a moment of much tension and frustration. Just after the game things happened that shouldn’t have happened,” he defined.