Cheaters never win

It takes speed and stamina to win a running race. Scottish ultramarathoner Dr. Joasia Zakrzewski had both, and she competed locally and internationally.

But after competing last April in the GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool 50-mile race, Zakrzewski has been banned by sports authorities from participating in competitions sanctioned by the UK Athletics for the next 12 months.

Zakrzewski was also stripped of her medal for finishing third in the GB Ultras and prohibited from representing the country, coaching, officiating, and managing runners for one year for cheating.

After the race, tracking data picked up irregularities in Zakrzewski's time, and she later admitted to having wrongfully accepted the third-place trophy, according to CNN.

BBC reported that Zakrzewski said she became lost around the race's halfway point and accepted a ride in a friend's car to the next checkpoint. At the checkpoint, she was persuaded to keep going and agreed to run in a "non-competitive way," Zakrzewski told the BBC, adding that she did not intend to cheat.

An investigative panel concluded that Zakrzewski did not tell race marshals that she had been given a lift in a car and concealed "that she had completed part of the race on a non-competitive basis" when she accepted — and subsequently did not return — the third-place trophy, CNN reported.

Cheating, however, does not only happen in sports.

A 43-year-old man was buying a diamond ring at a shopping mall on Bayfront Avenue in Singapore on 20 November.

As he closely examined a $318,000 ring in his left hand, he pointed to other rings inside the glass counter before returning the diamond ring to the sales staff with his right hand.

The alert staff immediately felt the price tag of the returned ring was of a different texture and called security guards, according to the Singapore Police Force website.

The man was detained, and the diamond ring was found in his possession, leading to his arrest.

According to the SPF, the ring swapper has been charged in court for cheating under Section 420 of the Penal Code 1871 and faces tenå years imprisonment and a fine.