Gold Medal Winner Admits To Cheating

Um, so if you admit to cheating, shouldn't they find a way to take away your medal??

Olympic swimmer Cameron van der Burgh from South Africa has admitted to cheating — but says that a lot of people do it.

That doesn't make it okay, dude.

He won the men's 100-meter breaststroke — but took three dolphin kicks instead of the only one allowed. Had the judges had access to underwater cameras, they would've disqualified him on the spot.

In breaststroke, competitors are allowed to take one dolphin kick at the start and one after each turn before starting their breaststroke kick.

The crazy thing is that he admits he took extra kicks, but was quick to point out it's typical of other swimmers as well:

"If you're not doing it, you're falling behind. It's not obviously - shall we say - the moral thing to do, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my personal performance and four years of hard work for someone that is willing to do it and get away with it."

Not an excuse, you should be disqualified.

He continued:

"I think it's pretty funny of the Australians to complain because in the underwater footage if you actually look at Brenton Rickard in the lane next to me, he's doing the exact same thing as me yet they're turning a blind eye.

"It's got to the sort of point where if you're not doing it you're falling behind or your giving yourself a disadvantage so everyone's pushing the rules and pushing the boundaries, so if you're not doing it, you're not trying hard enough."

The problem is, the time for appeal has passed.

He'll probably keep his medal, and we hope he feels terrible about it.

Honestly, we hope he goes down in history as nothing more than a cheater.

[Image via AP Images.]

Tags: australia, camera, cheating, crazy, judge, olympic, people, performance, problem, sad, swimming, water, work