The decision over the weekend by the International Olympic Committee to sidestep a complete ban of Russian athletes at the upcoming Rio Games doesn't mean sport's latest doping allegation won't eventually stand side by side with other noteworthy cheating scandals.
The IOC is instead relying on the international federations that govern the 28 Olympic sports to determine eligibility of their respective athletes through the implementation "very strict criteria."
The scandal became public in May after Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the longtime director of Russia's drug-testing lab, revealed to The New York Times that numerous Russians at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi were part of a state-run doping program, including at least 15 medal winners.
Those revelations had a distinct (Olympic) ring to them. But as we've seen time and again, breaking rules for a competitive edge comes in many forms. Here's a look at 10 cheating scandals that have rocked the world of sports:
Cycling: Lance Armstrong stripped of Tour wins
Armstrong captured what had been a record seven consecutive Tour de France titles from 1999 to 2005, but the American cyclist was stripped of those following an investigation by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
Suspicions regarding Armstrong's use of banned performance-enhancing drugs existed throughout his career. U.S. federal prosecutors opened an investigation into doping allegations in 2010, followed by the USADA one year later. Federal prosecutors dropped their case after two years, but the USADA persisted and formally accused Armstrong of doping in July 2012.
Months later, backed by a 200-page report, the USADA handed Armstrong a lifetime ban from competitive cycling and stripped him of all victories after Aug. 1, 1998. During a January 2013 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Armstrong finally admitted he'd used banned drugs during his Tour de France domination.
Figure skating: Tonya Harding's rival attacked
Harding will forever be known as the main figure in one of the most bizarre stories in sports history: the attack on fellow U.S. Olympic figure skater Nancy Kerrigan in January 1994.
During the 1994 U.S. figure skating championships in Detroit, an attacker struck Kerrigan above the knee with a baton after she stepped off the ice following practice. Kerrigan was not seriously injured but was unable to continue in the event, which Harding won. Both skaters competed at the Lillehammer Olympics the following month, with Kerrigan winning silver and Harding placing eighth.
An investigation ultimately led to a group of conspirators that included Harding's then-husband, Jeff Gillooly. Harding eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to hinder prosecution of the attackers and received three years' probation. The U.S. Figure Skating Association then stripped Harding of her 1994 national title and and banned her from their events for life. Four men involved in the plot, including Gillooly, wound up serving prison time.
College football: SMU pays ultimate price
The NCAA has never taken as drastic of a step as it did in 1987, when it cancelled SMU's football season -- aka the death penalty -- after discovering massive rules violations.
At the forefront of those violations was a slush fund used to lure recruits and reward rostered players for good performances. The Mustangs would have been allowed to play an abbreviated season in 1988, but SMU chose to sit out a second consecutive year after school officials determined it would be impossible to field a competitive team.
SMU's football program was hamstrung for decades following the sanctions, producing just one winning season in the next 20 years and failing to qualify for a bowl game until 2009.
Golf: Young Vijay Singh alters scorecard
Singh was young and broke when he was accused of one of golf's cardinal sins in 1985, altering his scorecard so he could make the cut at the Indonesian Open.
The alleged misdeed occurred after the second round, when the Fijian subtracted a stroke from one of the holes. Not only was he disqualified from the tournament, but the 22-year-old was suspended from the Asian Tour indefinitely.
Singh managed to keep his career alive and was playing professionally in Europe by 1989. He joined the PGA Tour at age 30 in 1993 and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2006.
Singh continued to steadfastly deny the accusations, telling Golf Digest in a 2001 interview, "Why should I admit to cheating? Just so you people in the press won't keep bringing it up? I cannot do that. That would be dishonest in itself."
Baseball: MVP Ryan Braun busted
Prior to the 2008 season, Milwaukee Brewers slugger Braun signed the largest contract in Major League Baseball history for a player with less than three years' experience. Four years later, he was fighting off performing-enhancing drug allegations that would eventually lead to a 65-game suspension.
Braun totaled 161 home runs over his first five seasons but then tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone following his 2011 MVP campaign. He successfully appealed those charges, even publicly attacking the credibility of MLB's drug program.
Braun hit a career-high 41 home runs in 2012 and was runner-up in the National League MVP voting, but in the middle of the following season, he struck a deal with MLB after evidence of his past PED use continued to mount. His suspension was the first resulting from the league's investigation into the Biogenesis clinic, which also led to 13 other players being banned for at least 50 games, including New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez.
Baseball: Cardinals executive hacks Astros
Chris Correa, a former executive with the St. Louis Cardinals, will have up to 46 months in federal prison to ponder the decision he made to hack into databases belonging to the Houston Astros.
Correa was sentenced earlier this month on five counts of unauthorized access of a protected computer in 2013 and '14.
The FBI said Correa, when he was the Cardinals' director of baseball development, figured out the password of a former St. Louis front office employee who had been hired to a similar position by the Astros. Correa was able to access databases that contained confidential information, such as which players the Astros were considering drafting and their trade discussion notes with other teams.
Marathon: Rosie Ruiz takes the train
Ruiz stepped out of the shadows, literally, to win the women's division at the Boston Marathon in 1980, only to be stripped of the title in one of the most brazen shortcuts in sports history.
Ruiz stepped off a subway about a mile from the finish line of the 26.2-mile race and darted onto the course, where she acted as if she ran the entire way while recording the fastest women's time in Boston Marathon history. Looking rather fresh compared to the other participants, she immediately raised suspicions.
During the ensuing investigation, two Harvard students came forward and claimed they saw Ruiz bolt from the crowd toward the end of the race. Those eyewitnesses, along with other evidence, prompted marathon officials to disqualify Ruiz and taint her as one of the all-time boldest cheaters.
Little League baseball: Danny Almonte age scandal
Almonte was a pitching phenom at the 2001 Little League World Series, but his size and fastball proved too good to be true. It was later uncovered that he was 14 years old while dominating the tournament for players ages 11-12.
Almonte stood 5-foot-8 and allowed just three hits over three starts, including a perfect game, while leading his Bronx (New York) Little League team to third place in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. By then, a rival team from New York already had hired a private investigator to look into the Bronx players' ages, but it wasn't until two weeks after the tournament that Almonte's authentic birth certificate from the Dominican Republic was accessed by Sports Illustrated.
Ultimately, Almonte's team was forced to forfeit all of its wins in tournament play, its records were removed from the books, and both Danny's father and the team's manager were banned for life from Little League.
Olympics: East German doping ring
The domination of the East Germans during international competition came to an end with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Along with it came the veil that covered their decades-long dependence on performance-enhancing drugs.
In an effort to improve the communist country's image and earn bragging rights over the rest of the world, East German officials distributed and administered anabolic steroids to its elite athletes, some of whom had little or no knowledge what they were taking.
At the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, the East Germans took home 37 gold medals and 102 overall, compared to 36 golds for the U.S. and 94 overall.
The East Germans will go down as the pioneers of doping, and many former athletes suffered serious health problems as a result. However, the records set and medals won remain in the books.
NFL: Patriots and their 'gates'
The New England Patriots doubled up on scandals in the past decade. They were disciplined by the NFL for illegal videotaping of opponents in 2007 and then accused of using underinflated footballs during their 2015 AFC Championship game victory over the Indianapolis Colts.
The videotape controversy, better known as Spygate, ultimately resulted in a $500,000 fine for head coach Bill Belichick, another $250,000 for the Patriots and the loss of their 2008 first-round draft pick.
The highly contested air pressure controversy, aka Deflategate, lingered for more than a year before being resolved earlier this month. Quarterback Tom Brady denied wrongdoing, but he accepted a four-game suspension after failing to convince the courts to overturn the punishment handed down by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. The league first imposed sanctions on Brady and the team in May 2015 after concluding that the superstar QB was "generally aware" of a scheme to deflate balls below the permitted limit. The Patriots didn't fight the penalty levied against them of a $1 million fine and the loss of two draft picks.