Renault parted company with flamboyant team boss Flavio Briatore on Wednesday and said they would not contest charges they had fixed last year's Singapore Grand Prix by ordering driver Nelson Piquet to crash, to help Spanish team-mate Fernando Alonso win.

We bring you some famous cases of cheating in sport in recent history.

Argentina won a 1986 World Cup football quarter-final against England in Mexico 2-1, Diego Maradona scoring the first with his hand, the infamous 'Hand of God' goal.

American Tonya Harding was banned for life from ice skating for trying to cover up a 1994 incident in which her husband and an associate deliberately injured her rival Nancy Kerrigan.

Former South Africa captain Hansie Cronje stunned the cricket world in 2000 after admitting he had accepted about $130,000 from bookmakers to influence the course of matches.

He was subsequently banned for life. Cronje died in a plane crash in 2002 aged just 32.

The Italian Serie A was rocked by a match-fixing scandal that involved clubs trying to procure favourable referees.

This affair led to Juventus being stripped of their 2005 and 2006 Serie A titles and being demoted to the second tier while five other clubs were deducted points. A criminal trial probing the scandal began earlier this year.

Former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi and Lazio president Claudio Lotito are among 24 club directors, referees and former Italian soccer federation officials standing trial.

American cyclist Floyd Landis, became the first Tour de France winner to fail a drugs test during the race after testing positive for the male sex hormone testosterone.

Landis, who denied using performance-enhancing drugs, was stripped of the title he won in 2006 and given a two-year ban which ended in 2009.