Vanessa-Mae cheated to ski at Winter Olympics

Vanessa-Mae competed under her father's name as Vanessa Vanakorn in February AP

Vanessa-Mae, the world-famous violinist turned Olympic skier, who trained and lives in Switzerland, has been banned from competing internationally in the sport for four years, after taking part in fixed qualifying races for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) announced on Tuesday that it had “found to its comfortable satisfaction” that four giant slalom races which took place in January in Slovenia, were rigged.

The musician moved to Zermatt, Switzerland in 2009 and announced her intention to try and competitively ski at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

She represented Thailand, where she was born, and competed under her father’s surname, Vanakorn, coming last out of 67 racers in the two-run giant slalom at the Sochi Olympics.

But the glory of participating in the Olympics was only achieved through a number of competitions set up at her management’s request. This was to help her gain the number of points needed to qualify for the games.

The FIS cited numerous incidents during the specially-arranged qualifying races that broke the rules, including how some results listed competitors who were not present during the races, a time for one skier was adjusted by more than ten seconds and weather conditions were so bad that any other race in Slovenia would have been cancelled.

Without these manipulated races Vanessa-Mae would not have made it through to the games.

FIS also banned five other officials for between one and two years for cheating.