THE London 2012 Olympic website has a page of internet addresses it says are ''unauthorised and claiming to offer London 2012 tickets''. It is a warning in bold and in red. Across town at the Metropolitan Police headquarters at Scotland Yard, a team of more than 35 police, all experts in e-crime, have been working for more than 18 months to stem a burgeoning proliferation of illegal ticket scams all centred on the Games.

It is the ultimate global crime and a fraudsters' honeypot because the Olympics attracts the world's attention, it can command a hefty premium for tickets and there is marketplace confusion about legitimate ticket sources.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/olympics-2012/london-ticket-scams-rife-as-police-struggle-to-cope-20120622-20tse.html#ixzz1yZ93QDYY

You'd think that by now, the system would be fool-proof or foul-proof...

There were drug cheats before, and there have been drug cheats since. But it took the downfall of Ben Johnson to demonstrate the apparent ubiquity of banned substances at the very highest level of sport.

On the evening of 24 September, the Canadian sprinter set a new world record of 9.79 seconds in the men's 100m final, lifting his hand in triumph as he crossed the finish line ahead of arch rival Carl Lewis and Britain's Linford Christie, in what a BBC commentator declared "the greatest sprint race in history".

Three days later, it became the most tarnished. Johnson was stripped of his medal, and had his record expunged after a sample of his urine tested positive for stanozolol, an illegal steroid. He initially denied cheating, but later confessed – arguing that drug use was endemic in top-tier athletics. In a way, he had a point: six of the eight finalists in that famous 100m race were at some point in their careers tainted by association with "juicing", and several, like him, served bans. But no one fell further, or harder, or more publicly than Ben Johnson. And somehow, the Olympic ideal would never feel quite the same.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/tarnished-gold-a-winning-guide-to-the-great-olympics-cheats-7869830.html