The Cheater's High

From Fred Lorz’s notorious car ride to rewired swords, discover the psychology driving athletes who treat cheating as an engineering challenge.

[Speaker 1]: It is August 30, 1904. We are in St. Louis for the Olympic Marathon, and the conditions are essentially hell on earth. It is ninety degrees, the dust is thick enough to chew on, and the runners are dropping like flies. [Speaker 2]: One of those runners is an American bricklayer named Fred Lorz. About nine miles in, his legs lock up. The cramps are unbearable. He is done. So, Fred does the logical thing. He waves down a car. [Speaker 1]: He climbs into the passenger seat, gets comfortable, and rides for eleven miles. He’s waving at spectators, recovering his strength, just cruising past the competition. [Speaker 2]: Until the car breaks down. Because it’s 1904. So Fred hops out, feeling refreshed, runs the last few miles, breaks the tape at the finish line, and immediately claims the Gold Medal. [Speaker 1]: He only stops celebrating when the officials point out that, you know, he spent half the race in a convertible. Lorz laughed it off, said it was just a joke, but that moment solidified a very specific image of the sports cheater. The lazy opportunist. [Speaker 2]: But here’s the thing. Taking a car is easy. Taking a car is lazy. But the history of sports fraud is actually filled with people who weren't lazy at all. Today, we are looking at the innovators. The athletes who treated cheating not as a shortcut, but as an engineering project. [Speaker 1]: We’re talking about rewiring swords, hardening plaster, and hiding motors. [Speaker 2]: And the psychology behind why they do it. Because it turns out, when you are in that car, or using that rigged sword, you don’t feel guilty. You feel something else entirely. [Speaker 1]: It’s Wednesday, January 21, 2026, and you’re listening to The Angle. [Speaker 2]: So when we talk about cheating, we usually think about desperation. The athlete who didn't train enough, so they look for a way out. [Speaker 1]: Right. The student looking at the answer key because they didn't study. [Speaker 2]: Exactly. But the most effective cheats in sports history are actually closer to heist movies. They require planning, technical skill, and a staggering amount of risk management. It’s a technology arms race. As the officials get better tools-chip timing, thermal cameras, drug tests-the cheaters have to get invisible. [Speaker 1]: It moves from "opportunistic" to "mechanical doping." And to understand the mindset, we have to look at the psychology first. There’s this concept researchers call the "Cheater’s High." [Speaker 2]: Yeah, this contradicts the standard model of conscience. We assume that while someone is cheating, they are sweating bullets, racked with guilt. But studies suggest that for a certain type of personality, the act of deception triggers a dopamine rush. It’s called "duping delight." [Speaker 1]: They don't feel bad about breaking the rules; they feel superior for outsmarting the enforcers. It’s a thrill. [Speaker 2]: And that thrill drives them to build some truly wild contraptions. [Speaker 1]: So let’s look at the gold standard of "engineered cheating." We have to go to the 1976 Montreal Olympics. The Modern Pentathlon. [Speaker 2]: This is the story of Boris Onishchenko. And to understand the cheat, you have to understand the mechanism of fencing. It’s electrical. [Speaker 1]: Right, it’s not like the movies where you just see who gets stabbed. The sword is part of a circuit. [Speaker 2]: Specifically, the tip of the épée. It’s a button. When you hit your opponent with at least 750 grams of force-which is a decent poke-the tip depresses,…