10 of the biggest Olympic scandals of all time

After suffering an injury prior to the games and knowing three minutes into her free skate set that she wouldn't be receiving a medal, Bonaly decided to pull out her signature move — which was illegal to do in competition.

"I wanted to do something to please the crowd, not the judges," she said, according to the Miami Herald and the Washington Post. "The judges are not pleased no matter what I do, and I knew I couldn't go forward anyway because everybody was skating so good."

According to the Huffington Post, Bonaly is one of only a few female skaters to have ever performed the move in competition, and the only skater, male or female, to ever land a one-foot backflip.

In one of the biggest scandals in sports history, Nancy Kerrigan was physically attacked on January 6, 1994, which put her at risk of never skating again. At the time, she was the top ice skater in the US and was a gold medal hopeful for the 1994 Winter Olympics, according to the New York Times.

Harding later pled guilty to not cooperating with prosecutors and informing them she knew about the plot. She was fined $160,000 and banned from ever participating in skating competitions again. Harding's ex-husband, former bodyguard, and two others spent time in prison for their connections to the scheme.

According to ABC News, five gymnasts took the opportunity to re-perform their vaults after the botched vault setting was revealed.

According to the New York Times, Fangxiao was found to have falsified her age to the Olympics committee in order to meet the requirements at the 2000 Olympics, which required all competing athletes to be at least 16 years old. At the time of the competition, she was 14.

The entire team's bronze medal was later revoked and Fangxiao's scores were discounted. The fourth-place US team was then awarded the bronze medal.

However, an official investigation into gold medalist He Kexin and several other teammates revealed they were indeed eligible to compete, according to Reuters.

At the 2000 Syndey Olympics, Jones became the first woman to win five track-and-field medals at a single Olympics, according to Britannica. However, in 2007, Jones admitted she had used steroids to prepare for the games and was stripped of her medals.

In January 2008, she was sentenced to six months in prison for lying to federal investigators about her steroid use ahead of the Olympics and for her involvement in a separate check fraud case.

The International Olympic Committee did a thorough investigation of all Russian athletes set to compete in the Rio Olympics after allegations of widespread "doping," the use of illegal substances to improve sports performance, were made.

According to Reuters, 271 athletes, only 70 percent of the team's original size, were approved to compete. 116 Russian athletes were banned from that year's Olympic Games.

The story caused an international scandal but an investigation revealed that rather than an armed robbery, a night of drunken revelry had ensued.

After the four men asked their taxi driver to pull over at a gas station, they engaged in public urination and vandalism. The group later said they were held at gunpoint by men who claimed to be police officers.

Lochte admitted to exaggerating their original story, saying, "If I hadn't exaggerated the story or told the entire story, none of this would have happened. I was coming from the France house, I was highly intoxicated, and I made immature accusations. If I had not done that, none of this would have happened.

He also said he was "truly, 110% sorry."

According to the New York Times, Lochte was given a 10-month suspension from domestic and international competitions, while Feigen, Bentz, and Conger were given four-month suspensions for failing to come forward about what actually happened that night.

Ahead of this year's Olympics in Tokyo, the International Swimming Federation announced that swim caps created for natural hair will not be permitted, according to Metro.

The organization, known as Fina, rejected an application to certify products from the Black-owned brand Soul Cap, which creates inclusive swim caps for people with dreadlocks, afros, and other natural hairstyles. Fina claimed the caps didn't fit "the natural form of the head" and were unnecessary.

"For younger swimmers, feeling included and seeing yourself in a sport at a young age is crucial," Toks Ahmed and Michael Chapman, the founders of Soul Cap, said in a statement sent to Insider. "FINA's recent dismissal could discourage many younger athletes from pursuing the sport as they progress through local, county, and national competitive swimming."

Sha'Carri Richardson, a medalist hopeful for this year's Olympics and one of the fastest female runners in the US, was excluded from the US relay team after testing positive for THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis, at the US Olympic Team Trials. She later admitted she took marijuana after learning from a reporter that her biological mother had died.

"I'm not making an excuse or looking for empathy in my case," the 21-year-old athlete said in an interview with NBC's "Today Show". "However, being in that position in my life, finding out something like that ... Dealing with the relationship I have with my mother, that definitely was a very heavy topic on me."

"First and foremost, we are incredibly sympathetic toward Sha'Carri Richardson's extenuating circumstances and strongly applaud her accountability — and will offer her our continued support both on and off the track," USATF said in a statement.

"While USATF fully agrees that the merit of the World Anti-Doping Agency rules related to THC should be reevaluated, it would be detrimental to the integrity of the US Olympic Team Trials for Track & Field if USATF amended its policies following competition, only weeks before the Olympic Games," the statement continued.