High level sport is often decided by fine margins, the single inches that complete the mile.
Eating a plant based diet, cryotherapy sessions, sleeping right, working on your mental state, and making sure to study video analysis can really make the difference when it comes to pipping your competitors to the post.
Also cheating. Blatantly cheating really helps as well.
In the wake of the Steve Smith cricket controversy we've put together our list of the most egregious offences that have been caught, because it's not cheating if you don't get caught, it's savvy.
Rahul Dravid
The Indian cricketer was fined in 2004 for rubbing his sucky sweet soaked saliva on a ball before he stepped up to bowl. No player has ever been banned for such an action, but Dravid received a hefty fine for tampering with the ball in an attempt to change it's trajectory en route to the batter.
Donal Og Cusack
Donal Og wasn't actually caught cheating, he got away with it. That is, he got away with it until he confessed in his autobiography. The crime he and Cork were guilty of? Swapping a fresh sliotar for a beaten up ball that'd travel far slower before Eoin Kelly took and a penalty for Tipperary in the 2005 Munster Final. The trick did it's work and Kelly missed, with Cork going on to win 1-21 to 1-16.
Boris Onishchenko
The Russian pentathlete and technologically advanced cheat competed in fencing at during the 1976 Olympics. He used a special sword that allowed him to score points at will. He was discovered, disqualified and lived out his life as either a taxi driver or a Siberian exile, depending on which reports you believe. If you want further explanation, watch the video above as Jim Fox did a better job explaining it all than we ever could.
Sammy Sosa
One of the most famous cases of cheating, in 2003 Sammy Sosa used a corked bat while playing for the Chicago Cubs, which supposedly allowed players to hit the ball further as a lighter bat meant a quicker swing. The bat shattered after connecting with a pitch and Sosa became one of only six people ever caught using the banned bat, and the most recent as well. Funnily enough, the theory behind a corked bat helping those swinging it has since been disproved, it makes zero difference to the distance you can hit the American sliotar.
Muhammad Ali
The then named Cassius Clay was defending his World Heavyweight Championship against the journeyman English scrapper Henry Cooper. Cooper dropped Clay just before the end of a round, and Clay's cornermen ripped the young fighter's glove while he sat on the stool, thus delaying commencement of the next round, and depriving the world and Cooper of potentially one of the greatest upsets the world of pugilism would have ever seen.
Catch the rest of our list in the video at the top of the page to see some sporting skulduggery involving non-stick cooking spray on American football uniforms, Vaseline on MMA fighters, self-mutilation in at the World Cup, and the lowest of the low; the British bridge team using finger signals to cheat the world.
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