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Glory one moment, gone in the next...
Doping in Olympic is huge enough to cast a dark shadow on them. Did you know it was the death of Danish rider Knut Jensen during the cycling road race at the 1960 Games that prompted scrutiny?
Key facts on doping cases at the Summer Olympics after Greece's 200 metres champion Costas Kenteris failed to attend a drugs test and faced expulsion from the Athens Games:
* The International Olympic Committee (IOC) did not ban drugs at the Olympics until 1967. This had been prompted in part by the death of Danish rider Knut Jensen during the cycling road race at the 1960 Games after taking amphetamines.
* Full-scale drug-testing was introduced in 1972.
* Anabolic steroids, strength-building drugs that mimic the effect of the male hormone testosterone, were banned in 1976 after a test for their use was developed in 1974.
* In the struggle between Olympic officials on the one side, and athletes, doctors and coaches on the other, positive drug tests hardly reflect the scale of the doping problem.
* In addition to out-of-competition positive tests, there is evidence of a far more systematic abuse of the system.
* Between 1970 and 1989, victims' groups estimate up to 10,000 East German athletes were routinely doped with anabolic steroids such as Turabinol. During this time, the East Germans collected 570 Olympic medals.
Yearwise list of the sensational doping cases at different Games.
ATHENS 2004
Kenyan boxer David Munyasia submitted the first failed test in Athens a week before competition began. He was thrown out for taking the stimulant cathine, found in East Africa's qat plant.
Greece's 2000 Sydney sprint champion Costas Kenteris and compatriot Katerina Thanou, the 100 metres women's silver medallist, failed to attend drugs tests on eve of the opening of Games and were summoned to IOC disciplinary hearing.
SYDNEY 2000
Positive steroid tests resulted in the disqualification of Norwegian and German wrestlers, a Latvian rower and an Armenian weightlifter. Three Bulgarian weightlifters also tested positive for a diuretic.
Romanian gymnast Andreea Raducan lost her gold when she tested positive for pseudoephedrine, a banned drug contained in an over-the-counter cold remedy. Raducan's appeal to CAS failed but pseudoephedrine, along with caffeine, has since been removed from the Olympics' banned list.
ATLANTA 1996
The Games' only positive test results came from a Lithuanian cycle rider and four Russians - two swimmers, a sprinter and a wrestler - who tested positive for the stimulant Bromantan.
All five had their results reinstated after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled there was insufficient evidence to disqualify them.
BARCELONA 1992
Fourth-placed Jud Logan in the hammer and shot-putter Bonnie Dasse were disqualified after testing positive for clenbuterol, a German asthma medication officially classed as an anabolic steroid.
Chinese volleyball player Wu Dan was thrown out after taking a Chinese folk tonic that, unknown to her, contained the stimulant strychnine.
SEOUL 1988
The most infamous doping case in Olympic history occurred when Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who ran faster than any man previously to win the 100 metres in 9.79 seconds, was stripped of his gold. US defending champion Carl Lewis was awarded the winners' medal after Johnson tested positive for steroids.
Johnson initially denied taking steroids but later admitted to a seven-year-long drug regime including steroids, hormones, and masking agents.
Bulgaria had won four golds and one silver medal in weightlifting before bantamweight gold Mitko Grablev and lightweight gold Angel Guenchev tested positive for a diuretic used as a masking agent for steroids. The Bulgarians withdrew the rest of their team.
Two Hungarian weightlifters were also disqualified.
LOS ANGELES 1984
Finnish runner Martti Vainio became the highest-profile disqualification to date when he was stripped of his 10,000 metres silver medal for testing positive for anabolic steroids.
Swedish super-heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestler Thomas Johansson lost his silver medal after a positive steroids test. He later took bronze in 1988. Heavyweight weightlifting compatriot Goran Pettersson was also disqualified.
Weightlifters from Austria and Lebanon were disqualified as was fourth-placed Italian hammer thrower Giampaolo Urlando, who tested positive for testosterone.
MOSCOW 1980
No athletes were disqualified for failing drug tests.
MONTREAL 1976
The first Olympics since steroid tests were developed resulted in several weightlifting disqualifications.
Polish lightweight Zbigniew Kaczmarek and Bulgarian heavyweight Valentin Hristov finished in gold medal positions before being stripped of their titles. Czech Petr Pavlasek, Bulgarian Blagoi Blagoev and Philip Grippaldi and Mark Cameron of the United States were also disqualified.
MUNICH 1972
Sixteen-year-old US swimmer Rick DeMont was stripped of his gold medal in the 400 metres freestyle. Team physicians were blamed after it emerged DeMont had taken a cough medicine he did not realise contained the banned drug ephedrine.
Mongolian lightweight Bakhaavaa Buidaa lost his silver medal after becoming the first person in judo to fail a drugs test.
The Dutch time trial cycling team lost their third place when member Aad van den Hoek tested positive for coramine, a drug allowed by the International Cyclists Union but not the IOC. Spanish cyclist Jaime Huelamo was also stripped of a bronze medal in the road race.
Drug tests showed 14 modern pentathletes had taken tranquilisers before going on to the shooting range. The drugs were banned by the sport's governing body but not by the IOC, so no disqualifications were made.
MEXICO 1968
Hans-Gunnar Liljenvall of Sweden became the first Olympic athlete to be disqualified for drugs after he failed a breath test for alcohol in the modern pentathlon's shooting stage.
