In a week when Britain's first competitors at next year's Sochi Winter Games were announced - Scotland's world champion women's curling team, skipped by Eve Muirhead and coached by the woman who skipped Team GB to gold at the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Games, Rhona Martin, news also arrived of a competitor who won't be taking part in the next Olympics in Russia: Simon Cho.

Cho, who won a bronze medal for the United States in short track speed skating at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and an individual world title the following year, has been banned for two years for tampering with a rival's skates.

News of Cho's suspension came on the day the US team for the short track event was announced. Having initially denied wrongdoing, Cho - who is banned by the International Skating Union (ISU) until August 2015 - confessed last October to deliberately altering the blades on the skates of Canadian rival Olivier Jean at the 2011 World Team Championships.

Olivier Jean, whose skate blades were illegally tampered with by Simon Cho at the 2011 World Team Championships

He described this action as "the biggest mistake of my life", and alleged that his coach had put pressure on him to do it after becoming convinced the Canadians had helped other athletes to knock out the US team.

His coach, Jae Su Chun, denies having had any role in the sabotage.

Cho admitted to using a blade-bender, normally used to keep skates to the correct radius in short track, to tamper with the Canadian's skates before competition started.

"I always knew it was wrong that day," Cho said. "I hope that I can make up for my mistake and continue to skate in the future." Well, he has his wish. But it will not be the near future.

This unhappy speed skater thus takes his place in a long and inglorious history of those who have cheated in sport by means of altering equipment, either to their own advantage, or to the disadvantage of their opponents. Cho's illicitly used blade-bender now joins a bewildering array of similarly nefarious props.

Tonya Harding, whose boyfriend was charged with hitting rival Nancy Kerrigan on her knee with a bar, ran into her own problems at the 1994 Winter Games as her laces came undone


Remaining for the moment within an ice arena, the lead-up to the women's figure skating at the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer was transformed into a soap opera when the very basic prop of an iron bar was forcefully applied to the knee of the leading US hope, Nancy Kerrigan. The drama deepened when it transpired that the bar had been wielded by the boyfriend of Kerrigan's main US rival, Tonya Harding. As the wheels of justice turned slowly, Harding was allowed to compete in Norway, which was good news for the media but not, ultimately, for her, as she produced a ragged display in a competition where Kerrigan took the silver medal.

That was an extraordinary piece of manipulation. But the most infamous example of this kind is the "magic épée" wielded at the 1976 Montreal Olympics by the Soviet Union's modern pentathlete Boris Onishchenko, who had won individual silver and team gold at the previous Games in Munich. It was magic because it could register hits without having to touch an opponent. Abracadabra!

How so? Well, it was internally wired with a circuit-breaker that Onishchenko was able to activate to record a "hit" on the electronic scoring system. He was eventually rumbled by his old rival and friend Jim Fox, of Britain, and was swiftly disqualified, automatically knocking the Soviet team - defending champions - out of the running.

Boris Onishchenko, pictured in fencing gear, was disqualified from the modern pentathlon competition at the 1976 Olympics when his épée was found to be rigged to register "hits"



The Ukrainian was very soon Back In The USSR - and has not been seen outside it since. Of course, the British newspapers loved it. Next day the headlines were all about "Disonischenko".

Twenty years before Onishchenko's embarrassment, a couple of other Soviet competitors were found to have benefited from another nifty piece of equipment enhancement.

When Yuri Stepanov produced a world record in the high jump of seven feet one inch (2.16 metres) early in the summer of 1957 it provoked surprise among observers of the sport who were unfamiliar with this new talent. Stepanov had not even made the Soviet Olympic squad at the previous year's Games in Melbourne.

And when, shortly afterwards, Olympian Igor Kashkarov - who had cleared only 6 feet 10½ inches to finish third at Melbourne in 1956 - managed a jump of 7 feet ¼ inch, questions began to be asked.

Then the French daily L'Équipe published a picture of Stepanov in action.

Interest swiftly focused on his shoes, the soles of which looked unusually thick and bouncy. In Moscow the high jumpers' coach, Nicolai Komenkov, insisted that there was nothing wrong with the soles. But no chance was offered for them to be examined, and so the then International Amateur Athletics Federations (IAAF) got involved.

"The rules say nothing about the foot gear of a high jumper," said the IAAF spokesman Paul Mericamp, "but the Federation has to take a stand on this phenomenon." Before long the rules did say something about suitable footwear for high jumpers and the spring-heeled-Jack soles were banned. But Stepanov's world mark stood.

Michael Palin, seen here picking up the Fellowship Award at this year's BAFTA Ceremony, hides a secret shame involving conkers


It may pain some readers to learn that that very nice man, Michael Palin, has also been found to have indulged in illegal technical manipulations in order to further his own ambitions at a World Championships - or the World Conker Championships, to give them their full title.

This shameful episode in the life of the former-Monty Python-comedian-turned-travel-writer-and-broadcaster took place in 1993 during a competition held on the Isle of Wight - Mecca for Conkerers, in case you didn't know.

Palin was found to have committed two of the prime crimes of the conkers competitor: not only had he baked his conker; he had also soaked it in vinegar. Not nice, but these things have to be faced full on if they are to be properly addressed. At least he didn't, as some have, paint his conker with clear nail varnish.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.