Strange but True Olympic Events that are Discontinued

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.