Strange but True Olympic Events that are Discontinued
Go For The Gold
The Olympics is a tradition of global cooperation and a demonstration of national pride at the same time. A way for countries to demonstrate their superiority in a given field. We all have our favourite events to watch be it baseball, long jumping, hammer throw, gymnastics, or any one of the host of other events, but how many of you are a fan of the city planning event, or the live pigeon shooting event. Believe it or not these are real medal placing categories from days of yore.
Image is a stock photo, rights granted
Wrestling - Dates Played: 708 BCE to 2020 (Excepting the 1900 Summer Olympics)
Before I start into the really odd sports I thought it fitting to include a brief fair well to wrestling which will to be eliminated from the Summer Olympics for the 2020 round.
I hope in the end Wrestling is brought back. It is quite a sport, and it is unfortunate that the IOC doesn't see it that way.
Olympic Art Competition
Dates played: 1912, 1924 - 1948
There were five categories in the Art's competition they were:
- Architecture
- Literature
- Music
- Painting
- Sculpture
Each primary category had various sub events one could enter, including town planning.
Taken from the Official Report of the 1896 Olympic Games.
Live Pigeon Shooting
Dates played: 1900
In 1900 Paris was overrun with pigeon's, the solution, since Paris was hosting the Olympics they decided live pigeon shooting would be a wonderful event. Live pigeons would be released for each contestant and a contestant would be eliminated after two misses. The contestant with the most kills won. 300 pigeons were killed in this event, and it is the only time on record that animals were intentionally harmed as part of an Olympic event.
Motor Boating
Dates played: 1900 (demonstration sport) 1908
This was actually three events based on the size of the boat. All three events were plagued with technical trouble and only one boat even finished the race in all three classes, as such only gold medals were awarded.
Tug of War
Dates played: 1900 to 1920
Tug of war is a well known event held at picnics and fairs yearly world wide, but its hardly considered a sport just a game. However from 1900 to 1920 the Olympics included tug of war. One of the oddest things about the tug of war event was that the teams represented clubs instead of countries, and one country could have several clubs representing that country.
200m Swiming Obstical Race
Dates played: 1900
This event was only ever held for the 1900 Olympics, starting to notice a trend about 1900, the coordinators of those Olympics must have been high that year.
The event consisted of climbing over a pole, then scrambling over a row of boats, then under another row of boats, all against the current of the river Seine. Try that in 2:38.4 (the gold medal wining time).
Tandem Cycling
Dates played: 1906, 1908, 1920-1972
Olympians on a bicycle built for two, so romantic, so, well not as odd as so many others listed, but weird. Despite the phasing out in 1972 the tandem event isn't completely gone and now apparently has a place in the paraolympics.
More Olympic Oddities
© 2012 Jeff Johnston
Guestbook Comments
Thanks for a fun lens. Several of these made me smile!
I am happy to know that live pigeon shooting has been discontinued. Killing things doesn't seem in the spirit of the Olympics. I am also happy for the sake of our environment that motorboat racing has gone the way of the dodo bird. The swimming obstacle race sounds like a challenge from Survivor. Thanks for a lens with an unusual topic. I enjoyed it.
What?! No more Live Pigeon Shooting? LOL! Thanks for the fun old Olympic events!
- AUTHOR
@anonymous: I love useless info to :D
I just love useless information and this has added to the lists that are already cluttering up my brain, with which I shall bore people at parties from now until evermore!
Leave to the French - 1900 - really strange events!
Nice little lens here TMM. Thanks for putting it together for us all. Angel dust sprinkled....
Wow, I didn't know about these Olympic events before. Thanks for sharing the information.
Very Fun! They should bring the art competition back so I can be an Olympian!
Tug of war! Really?! Lol
- AUTHOR
@bossypants: 1900 must have been a strange year to watch for sure.
- AUTHOR
@anonymous: Thanks Tipi. It was a fun Lens to research and write. Love finding little tidbits of useless info.
Sounds like the 1900 games were quite the free for all! Enjoyed your lens of little known Olympic facts!
Great article. Fun to read!
Fun lens!
I sure enjoyed reading this, hadn't seen it anywhere else. :)
Interesting. I wonder if extreme sports or dance will ever make it in. I know that the more creative a category is, the more subjective and therefore, potentially less fair the adjudication , but I think it would make for some awesome entertainment :)
Strange lens with not much content, but it's funny as hell :)
Interesting lens! Thanks!
Why did they stop tug of war :( Sound like good entertainment - a lot better than football (soccer) which has so many other world tournaments
Hilarious. Unicycling maybe?
Interesting lens - Olympic level tug o'war? Mind boggling!
Bring back the tandem! That sounds like a great race!
Did you know that squash isn't an olympic sporrt??
They should bring Tug of War back!
- AUTHOR
@hessa johnson: It was done to music, I remember watching solo synchronized swimming, or was we called it the Oxymoronic event.
My favourite is solo synchronized swimming. Probably done to music, but still seems funny to me.
Great article, MeadMan. Thanks for being the historian and sharing these.
What an interesting article. Thank you.
- AUTHOR
@Mamaboo LM: Plan on it, there are a few other events I've stumbled upon since.
- AUTHOR
@YellowTaxis: agreed, the tug of war would be cool to see on an Olympic level.
- AUTHOR
@themeaparty: Yup, with a sub category of town planning, weird eh. One year the gold medal for architecture went to the guy who designed that years Olympic stadium for that very design.
Architecture????
would of loved to see tug of war, would of been interesting
Very cool lens! I had no idea of all the events in the Olympics! Thanks for sharing. Greetings from 'the land of eternal spring'!
I would have loved to see the arts competitions.
Great lens!
I love your lens. I hope you continue to add to it. Be blessed!
haha that is so weird. There are still some sports in the olympics that should be removed.
Bring back motor boating! ;)
amazing, i really very happy to know few facts about olympics, thanks for the information you share.
No wonder some of these were discontinued! I think tug of war and some sort of an obstacle race would be fun...I'm not sure about it being a swimming event though. Blessed
What a kick! I love little known facts like this.
Who knew about all these events? Very interesting to see what they consider Olympic-worthy sports in the past.
I can see why they discontinued these events! Imagine being pelted with dead pigeons!
I had no idea tug of war was ever an Olympic sport. That would be fun to watch!
I'd love to see the Obstacle Race brought back again.
Well, I'm sure glad they discontinued these events, especially the pigeon shooting. Imagine what kind of events the hosting city could come up with if they could just randomly add an event.
This is pretty hilarious.. Live Pigeon Shooting. LOL
Great Olympic trivia here.
Wow, who would have thought! Very interesting.
A fun lens. Thanks for sharing!
Interesting stuff.
I thought tug of war was an innocent enough fun sport.
Great lens! I'm still wondering why ping pong is considered a sport...
Very interesting facts
I think the 'Tug of War' would make a great event :0) Live pigeon shooting, no, no, no. Very interesting lens.
Hahaha, they must have been high with the swimming obstacle course. I laughed. Lovely lens. Thanks.
fun lens!
what a great and funny piece of history. Thank you for the great lens.
These are classic - I guess live pigeon shooting is the worst
Live Pigeon Shooting and Tug of War would be my favorites if still held today. These events are a bit reminiscent of my lifelong desire to see Dodge Ball and Kickball to be NCAA inter-collegiate sports.
This is fun and enjoying, great history here. Blessed! Congrats on the Purple Star!
Glad they got rid of the pigeon shooting one. It's not right for birds to have to die for sporting events. I am surprised though about the tug of war. Of all the ones you listed, that seems the most Olympic to me.
LOL some of these would be more interesting to watch than the events they have today!
Very interesting and unusual Olympic facts - enjoyed reading this ~~Blessed~~
Now I'll have a little Olympic trivia to show off tonight while we're watching the Olympics - thanks!
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