The biggest sports scandals of the 21st century

The following year, the ban was cut to two years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. However, the measure still prevented Russia from competing at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics and football’s 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Kobe Bryant

In 2003, the Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant was arrested after being accused of rape by a hotel employee in Colorado. The woman refused to testify in court while Bryant insisted that he never assaulted her and the sex was purely consensual, noted the Bleacher Report.

However, he later apologised for the incident, saying he recognised that “she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did”. A subsequent civil suit was settled out of court, reported the BBC.

In 2020, Bryant and his daughter Gianna were among nine people killed in a helicopter crash in California.

Oscar Pistorius

On 14 February 2013, the South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. He later claimed he had mistaken her for an intruder hiding in the bathroom.

At his trial in 2014, Pistorius was initially found not guilty of murder, but was convicted of culpable homicide. He received a five-year prison sentence but after an appeal he was convicted of murder. His sentence was extended to 15 years.

Tiger Woods

In November 2009, the world’s No. 1 golfer Tiger Woods crashed his SUV in the early hours of the morning near his Florida home. According to the BBC, Woods was “groggy from a cocktail of painkillers and sleeping pills. He then lost consciousness and was ferried to hospital in an ambulance”.

The broadcaster added that Woods’s wife Elin had just discovered that her husband had been cheating on her. The episode led to increased scrutiny of his personal life, and Woods eventually admitted to having had around 120 affairs.

He featured on the front page of the New York Post for 20 consecutive days, beating a record set by the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, noted the BBC.

Woods and his wife divorced, he lost several leading sponsors and he fell to No. 58 in the world rankings in 2011.

Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/world-news/956192/the-biggest-sports-scandals-of-the-21st-century