To be an Olympic champion, you gotta be the best. To be number one on this show means you’re probably the worst. Ash and Alaina from Parcast Network’s Crime Countdown explore the crimes and scandals that rocked the world’s most prestigious sports event.

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Building a massive doping operation to cheat the Olympics was one thing, but for Russia, keeping it secret was the bigger challenge. After one of its former athletes blew the whistle on the operation, Putin oversaw a massive cover-up that saw top officials fleeing the country.

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For Vladimir Putin and Russia, the Olympics were not simply a sports competition; they were a show of power on the world stage. And ahead of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, the national team was criminally advantaged—by a top-secret, state-sponsored steroid program.

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In 2013, a year after signing one of the biggest contract extensions ever granted a tight end, Hernandez was involved in yet another shooting. His career, and his life, collapsed after his arrest. 

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At the University of Florida, Aaron Hernandez won two national championships and the John Mackey Award for best tight end. He went on to play for the New England Patriots, earning millions. But behind closed doors, he was reckless and violent… And a murder plot gone wrong only made him more frenzied. 

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In the mid-to-late ‘90s, during the second half of his NBA career, Dennis Rodman struggled to maintain his celebrity. As his star faded, he resorted to more and more outrageous antics to get the public's attention.

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He went from college dropout to one of the most dominant NBA defenders of all time. But Dennis Rodman’s tough childhood in the 1960s and ‘70s left him with a need for attention that threatened to overshadow everything he worked for.

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As the 1910 baseball season came to a close, few were focused on the World Series. Instead, fans all over the U.S. were clamoring to know whether Ty Cobb or Nap Lajoie had finished the season with the highest batting average. What they didn’t know was that one player’s team was trying to cheat.

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In April of 1910, the baseball season began, with even more on the line than usual. Whoever had the highest batting average across the American and National Leagues would be awarded a brand-new Chalmers 30 automobile—a baseball promotion that would become a full-blown embarrassment after officials tried to fix the results.

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FIFA president João Havelange built international soccer into a global marketing phenomenon—and used it as his own personal piggy bank. Though he got away with perpetuating a cycle of corruption and cronyism for years, eventually his scandals would finally come to light in 1998.

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He was an Olympic athlete and marketing genius. With the help of some well-connected friends, João Havelange soon rose to the top of international sports and became the president of FIFA in 1974. But behind closed doors, Havelange profited off of bribes and attempted to seal his legacy with corruption and nepotism.

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