This summer's Tour de France Femmes has been overshadowed by a somewhat bizarre row over aerodynamic clothing. 

Midway through the annual nine-day women's cycle race around France which ends on Sunday, organizer ASO told riders their clothing would be checked at the start of each daily stage. ASO said this would prevent any attempts at making "aerodynamic gains".

The move follows concerns expressed by some competitors that additional padding in their bras could help riders gain up to one second per kilometer, a considerable advantage during time trials. The affair has been dubbed 'Bra-gate'.

Airflow and aerodynamic efficiency is an increasingly critical part of cycling, with the shape of bike frames and skinsuits potentially saving riders several seconds.

It's far from the first controversy in a sport where contests are decided by the tiniest of margins.

In 1978, Belgian Michel Pollentier was disqualified from cycling's most prestigious race, the Tour de France, after using an elaborate plumbing system under his jersey to fake a drug test by using someone else's urine. 

In 2012, American Lance Armstrong, who recorded seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005, was stripped of all his titles after an investigation found he had used performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career.

But other sports have equally murky histories.

Here are some of the most famous examples of sporting cheating. 

Football

Perhaps the most infamous act of individual skullduggery witnessed in the so-called Beautiful Game was the so-called 'Hand of God' incident in 1986. In a World Cup quarter final against arch-rivals England, pint-sized Argentinian genius Diego Maradona leapt to punch the ball into the net, an egregious offence missed by the match officials. 

Argentina won the match 2-1 and English fans have spent the past 40 years continuing to complain. 

In another quarter final in 2010, Uruguay striker Luis Suarez was at the center of a further handball controversy. In the last minute of extra time Suarez saved a certain winning Ghanaian goal by punching the ball off the goal line. 

Suarez was red-carded but Ghana missed the spot kick and Uruguay won the subsequent penalty shootout to prevent Ghana from becoming the first African team to reach a World Cup semi-final. 

It's not just individual acts of cheating that have proved controversial. A match-fixing scandal saw French team Marseille stripped of their French league title in 1993 and relegated from Ligue 1. 

2006 saw the Calciopoli scandal saw five Italian top flight teams punished after an investigation involving wire-tapping revealed systematic attempts to affect the outcome of matches by influencing referees. The harshest punishment was reserved for Juventus who were relegated to Serie B and stripped of two championships. 

More recently, this year's World Cup was dogged by controversial decisions made by the VAR (Video Assistant Referee) team, with Egyptian coach Hossam Hassan claiming that his team's round-of-16 defeat against Argentina was "not fair" and accusing tournament organizers FIFA of wanting Egypt's opponents to reach the final. 

The decision to overturn the suspension of US striker Folarin Balogun for his team's last-16 defeat against Belgium was even more controversial after US President Donald Trump claimed he had successfully asked FIFA to intervene.

Golf

Among the most blatant instances of cheating in golf saw Scotsman David Robertson banned for 20 years by the PGA European Tour after moving his ball up to two feet from its correct spot at the 1985 British Open. 

Motor Racing

As the seventh richest global sport, with huge sponsorship deals, it's perhaps no surprise that the world of motorsport has seen its fair share of scandals. 

The 2008 'Crashgate' affair saw Renault F1 driver Nelson Piquet Jr. deliberately crash during the Singapore Grand Prix to give a sporting advantage to his Renault teammate, Fernando Alonso. The Renault team received a two-year suspended disqualification from Formula One. 

A controversial final-day crash at the 1994 Adelaide Grand Prix saw World Champion Michael Schumacher accused of deliberately crashing into rival Damon Hill, putting both drivers out of the race and allowing the German to win the title by a single point. 

Although intent was never proven in the incident, Schumacher was subsequently stripped of second place in the 1997 championship having been found guilty of ramming championship rival Jacques Villeneuve in the year's final race in Jerez.  

Athletics

The pinnacle of athletics - the Olympic Games - has a long history of being marred by competitors' drug-taking. In what became dubbed 'The Dirtiest Race in History', Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of the prestigious 100 metre sprint gold medal in 1988 in Seoul after testing positive for stanozolol, an anabolic steroid. Second-placed Carl Lewis, who had tested positive for banned stimulants during the US Olympic trials earlier that year but avoided suspension, was awarded gold. 

At the 2000 Sydney Games American sprinter Marion Jones became the first woman to win five track-and-field medals at a single Games. But having pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about her drug use, the US golden girl was stripped of all her medals and later served six months in prison.

As far back as the 1904 Olympics, American runner Fred Lorz took a rest nine miles into the 26-mile marathon and hitched a ride in a car for 11 miles to win the event before being disqualified. 

It's not just Olympic runners, though. The 1976 Montreal Olympics were overshadowed by the disqualification of Ukrainian pentathlete Boris Onishchenko having modified his epees sword for the fencing event. And at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a horse ridden by Norwegian Tony André Hansen, tested positive for capsaicin. 

Cricket

Recently, footage of an amateur English cricketer clicking his fingers to trick an umpire into thinking a batsman had been caught by a fielder went viral. 

But dishonesty in the 'gentlemen's game' goes to the very top. The 2018 'Sandpapergate' saga saw Australia's Cameron Bancroft rough up the ball with sandpaper.

Cricket Australia handed unprecedented year-long suspensions to captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner for their roles in the affair. 

In a more brazen attempt to gain a competitive edge, Australian batsman Dennis Lillee used an aluminum bat in a Test match against England in 1979, claiming there was nothing in the rules insisting bats must be wooden. After a ten-minute standoff Lillee agreed to use a traditional bat, throwing the offending metal 40 yards towards the pavilion in anger. 

Far more serious was the lifetime ban given to South African captain Hanse Cronje who admitted various 'spot-fixing' offences in 2000, two years before his death in a plane crash. It was the first of several high-profile examples of 'spot fixing' in which individual cricketers were are enticed by gambling syndicates to alter micro-events during matches.

Rugby

Perhaps the most inadvertently comic acts of sporting deception came with Bloodgate in 2009 when Harlequins player Tom Williams bit into a fake blood capsule, leading to large amounts of the red fluid flowing down his face. Williams had been instructed to do this to allow a previously substituted colleague to return to the field. 

Williams was later banned from the sport for four months while Harlequins director of rugby Dean Richards resigned and received a three-year ban.

Is it worth it?

History has been littered by acts of individual and team cheating, although the majority of sporting contests do appear to be played within the rules - if you ignore footballers playacting, cricketers sledging and the endemic sportswide intimidation of officials!

It's perhaps the rarity of the deception that makes it so shocking when it is uncovered, or indeed witnessed in real time by spectators. 

But is the risk of getting caught worth the damage to your reputation if you are forever labeled a fraud?

Many sports participants, both professional and amateur, echo the words of ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles who wrote that "I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating."

But not everyone would agree. As NASCAR stockracing legend Smokey Yunick opined: "There are two types of racers - cheaters and losers."

One thing's for sure. With the stakes in professional sports growing every year and with amateurs seeing their political leaders lie with seeming impunity - stretching the boundaries of acceptable behavior ever further - cheating on and off the pitch isn't going to disappear.