Lovely to speak with @lizellisradio on teh subject of cheating in sports.
Why do people cheat in Sports?
There’s an adage that ‘everyone loves a winner, and to some extent, it’s true. We love great athletes. We want our team or country to win at sports, whatever the Sport. We want our favourite team to win, But at what cost and do we always care??
Cheating has been around for a long time in Sports, as it has in life. The reason people cheat is easy to define – they Want to win at any cost; Ego drives the need. Some people want to be the Best, whatever it takes. If there are financial rewards, that desire to win can grow exponentially.
And as history has shown, people will go to extraordinary—lengths to win.
What drove Lance Armstrong, at the time one of the most celebrated cyclists and one of the greatest athletes in the world had ever seen to cheat for years, taking performance-enhancing drugs even after having the life-threatening condition of cancer (In October 1996, at the age of 24, he was diagnosed with metastatic testicular cancer with the disease has already spread to his abdomen, lungs and brain). His Ego still forced him to show everyone he was the best – and it didn’t matter what he had to do to get there. His story is extraordinary in terms of the longevity and the depth of his deceit, issuing lawsuits against those who dare question his claim to be ‘cycling clean’.
Whilst cheating has always been around and is well documented in sports such as cycling and track and field, where Performance-enhancing drugs can make a significant impact, it’s now, when evidence of cheating in sports such as fishing, chess and poker occurs, that people sit up and listen. The stories are as fascinating as they are sad.
Over the past few months, cheating has been seen in sports that you would never previously have associated with cheats.
In a high-profile televised poker game in a Californian casino, Garrett Adelstein, a famous cash game player and a regular on the HCL stream, played a hand with a new competitor at the casino called Robbi Jade Lew. She stunned the other players, commentators and audience alike with a series of ever-increasing bets (with no hand to justify the play), only to win over $269,000. She was accused of cheating and possibly having a thumping device which told her the hand that her opponent was betting against
Another unusual case was a cheating scandal which tore the competition at a fishing tournament in Ohio set to award $29,000 to two winning anglers. A heavier-than-expected catch led to an inspection by officials at the Lake Erie Walleye Trail, and they were stunned to find that weights and loose fish fillets had been fed to the catch to increase its weight.
Even chess players have been accused of using unscrupulous cheating methods to win matches. And it’s not just spurred-the-moment situations, like a football player exaggerating contact and diving to win a penalty for his team. Systematic cheating occurs where actual nations (e.g., East Germany and Russia) have been caught cheating; in these cases, the disastrous and negative long-term impact on the health and well-being of their Athletes have also been well documented,
So why do people cheat?
Fame and fortune
Individuals, clubs, societies, and even Countries can gain a lot of credibility, fame and notoriety by excelling in sports. Athletes can be revered around the globe for their sporting success; Look at Muhammed Ali, Floyd Mayweather, Ronaldo, Pele, Serena Williams, Federer, Nadal, et al. All are iconic figures. In their sports, with worldwide recognition, fame and fortune, Many others want to emulate their great successes. Whether they do not have the talent or, more likely, the extraordinary work ethic to do what it takes to win, they fall victim of taking shortcuts that they feel will get them where they need to be quicker.
That is not to say the cheats do not have to work hard; Lance Armstrong had to work extremely hard to win 7 Tour De France competitions. This is, without doubt, one of the most arduous tests of human endeavours, testing both physical and psychological capacity to the max,
The work that an Olympic athlete will have to endure for a four-year cycle to be judged in 10 seconds at the Olympic games is both intense and prolonged. The commitment and work ethic of any athlete competing at the highest level cannot be underestimated. The temptation, therefore, exists amongst some to try and gain a slight advantage. If you feel the risk is worth it, it may become unavoidable.
Not all athletes are the same, and not all. Sports are the same;
I have been fortunate to work with performers in most sports, and my main two focus areas, football and tennis, have been pretty clean. I have never experienced any athlete or player actively trying to cheat. Even though these two significant sports are different, with the team and individual nature, one commonality is the need to make constant reactive decisions in the face of adversity over a sustained period.
Historically, many sports tainted by doping include extreme endurance. type (e.g. cycling) or quick, strength-requiring sports (e.g. weight-lifting or sprinting).
There are still challenges in every sport,
In tennis, young players will generally play in competitions without umpires. Poor line calls And deception is an area they need to contend with; in football, the player who dives for a penalty or uses an unseen hand to push the ball into the goal or passes to a teammate who then scores (Maradona and Thierry Henry), constitute the worse’ offences. These are generally instantaneous and creative. Responses to an immediate situation might be considered mild forms of Cheating. Or even accepted Machiavellian behaviours.
Other forms of Cheating can be more. Systematic., with carefully planned out regimes of blood transfusions, injecting performance-enhancing drugs (e.g. EPO), and worse, There are currently considerable debates in some sports with the advent of transgender people. Does a former male athlete changing their identity to a woman constitute an unfair advantage or cheating?
In sports requiring strength and stamina, whether athletes are attracted to cheating will also be closely aligned to their moral compass or values and the culture they are used to. British Cycling famously wanted to show the world. d that the Tour De France could be won cleanly and take great strides to demonstrate the culture they have developed with all of their athletes. And that is one of hard work and marginal gains, exploring every aspect of their sport that will make a minute difference. Motor Racing (Formula One in Particular) also pride itself in data-driven improvements. However, even here, claims of subtle changes to equipment and other various forms of breaking the rules are often seen.
Many conflicting situations emphasize winning over sportsperson-ship and Fair play,” No sport appears exempt from this dangerous and damaging monster.
Why do athletes cheat? The Mindset of a performer
In psychology terms, we often speak about goal orientation. What drives an athlete to excel.? It depends, in part, on the personality type of the athlete. In Sports, we talk about the task or Ego orientation, and whilst most athletes are a combination of both, it’s worth exploring what each type means.
Task-oriented athletes and performers are those whose primary performance focus is self-improvement, being better today than they were yesterday and striving to improve themselves every day, irrespective of others around them.
These athletes
- Focus on hard work and self-development
- Focus on performance excellence
- Focus on the task at hand – what do I need to do, and how do I do it?
These athletes will focus on every aspect of their Sport and see how they can improve. So the football player may work hard on technical skills, running efficiency, endurance training, psychological skills training and tactical awareness, Each of these areas will be broken down into further sub-sections, and the athlete will strive to improve every aspect.
So, training the mind might include aspects of building self-awareness, self-confidence and mental toughness (each requiring special and dedicated attention and practice), building resilience and improving goal-setting strategies, visualization techniques and self-talk. And a similar approach is taken for technical, tactical and physical aspects of their Sport. We call these athletes process driven.
You only have to look at superstars like Michael Jordan to see this approach. His TV documentary, The Last Dance, epitomizes this approach, where hard work and personal improvement of every aspect of the sport are at the core of what they do. Every day.
Whilst working at Charlton Athletic in the English Football League, I asked their then manager, Chris Powell, which player he admired the most that he had played with; without hesitation, he said Paolo Di Cannie. He was talent epitomized. I wondered why he said that, and the reply was: when all of us (players) were leaving the training ground at 1 pm at the end of our day, Paolo would get a bag of balls and go on the pitch for another couple of hours and practice,” Enough said.
Task-oriented athletes
Task orientation is seen very much in immersive individual sports such as rock climbing and surfing, whereby athletes are so engaged in what they are doing they enter what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described as a flow state.
Task orientation is closely aligned with what Carol Dweck described as a growth mindset, whereby people understand that with effort and dedication, they can grow and develop their abilities Abd skills to extraordinary levels.
One significant benefit of this type of mindset is that athletes will tend to suffer less with
- P{performance anxiety
- Fear of failure
- Fear of losing
- Fear of what other people think
- Free of evaluation by others.
- A shield from criticism from social media Nd the press
Ego-oriented athletes
An Ego oriented athlete wants to win and does not particularly mind how they get there, So their focus is on what others are doing and the comparison.
They focus on being better than everyone else and generally believe skill to be a matter of innate ability. Because of this, they do not use personal improvement as their main driver and so may lose out on the pleasure of their Sport and the pride in improving every day; they need to win, and if that means playing badly and not improving, then that’s okay.
You see this attitude and approach in the mindset of young athletes who excel because they are talented and, sometimes, more significant, faster and stronger than their opponents. They get used to winning and become dependent upon their physique and skill set to get them through; as they and others around them develop strength and other physical qualities might start to even themselves out, and this once uneatable player becomes beatable, the self-esteem is damaged; Ego’s shredded, and rather than look too hard work and improvement, blame and excuses become the norm.
Characteristics of Ego driven athletes
- Protect Ego and self-esteem
- They are more likely to blame external sources if they lose
- More likely to cheat to win
- Less moral compass or values
- Winning is everything attitude
- Lower moral functioning
Compared to high task-oriented athletes, research points to how high ego-oriented athletes have lower sportsmanship, more self-reported cheating, and endorsement of cheating.
Read the earlier article on ‘Cheating in Sport’ in iNews CLICK HERE TO READ.
Media sport psychology consultant and peak performance consultant Roberto Forzoni. Roberto gives an Insight into the world of elite performance, the psychology of behaviour and performance, well-being, and positive mental health.
When it comes to performance psychology, sports psychology, radio psychology content, and media psychology, for expert advice, contact roberto@robertoforzoni.com.
Roberto is the author of the FA’s guide to psychology and the former national performance manager for the LTA.
He works extensively in Football, Tennis, and Athletics (Track and field). He has a wealth of experience with Elite sportspeople. And how to deal with the pressure at the highest level, individually and within a team.