Modern, that is.
My spouse and I were watching women’s pole vaulting nad I noted that this was the first Olympics for this event. This gave rise to the observation that we could note many sports being added (synchronized diving, synchronized swimming, women’s weight lifting).
Can anyone come up with a sport that was once in the Olympics but is no longer?
Tinker
Standing broad jump, standing high jump, standing hop step and jump (triple jump). Ray Ewry won 9 gold medals in these (12 if you count the 1906 Athens games). Now you just have the running broad jump, etc.
Rope climbing. My sister-in-law’s great uncle was a competitor.
Also, depth diving, 100 meter freestyle for sailors, and the obstacle course.
And tug-of-war.
Golf. I believe it made one appearance only, and that was in the 1904 Olympics.
Thanks all.
Tinker
Ummm…1906 Olympics in Athens? I thought they had
Olympics in 1904 and 1908. Or did they have a special tenth-anniversary meet in 1906?
Evidently this involved picking up two heavy wooden clubs
that looked like outsize bowling pins and whirling them
around. It was really more a way of working out than a sport. How they could hold competitions in it I don’t know.
If you’re talking about a whole discipline: golf, rugby, tug-of-war are the three that come to mind.
There have been a lot of different track and field events that have been discontinued along with events in sailing (it’s used to be called yachting), shooting, and cycling.
The 1904 Olympics in St. Louis is the one to check for the most screwball events. The games there were rather disorganized and lasted for several months as they were held in conjunction with the World’s Fair.
I don’t think we need to go back to the plunge for distance or the underwater swim.
In 1900, there was live pigeon shooting.
Before World War II, there were art and literature competitions held in conjunction with the Olympics.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by javaman *
**
The World Almanac shows a listing of the Olympics and places where held. The 1906 Olympics has a footnote that it was not recognized by the Int. Olympic Committee. No answer is offered as to why games were held in a non-Olympic year.
Maybe someone can tell us why these were held in 1906?
I would swear Icelandic wrestling also ran for one Olympics in the '40s, but can’t find a confirmation of that.
Fishing used to be an Olympic event. Most of the others have been covered.
Icelandic wrestling, called glima, was contested once. I believe Iceland was the winner.
American football was contested a few times. The US won that one.
I’ve got a sport that was in the Olympics, then wasn’t, and now is! Tennis. They removed it when Tennis entered the open era and only added it back in 1988.
Was the modern pentathlon (fencing, equestrian, shooting, something and something (running and swimming?)) removed from the olympics? Was it ever part of the olympics?
–sublight.
Live pigeon shooting was an Olympic event at the turn of the century. Somehow, I doubt it’ll make a comeback.
The pentathlon consists of
fencing,
pistol,
swimming,
steeplechase, (running through puddles & over fences)
& equestrian (sorta like steeplechase on a horse).
It was an Olympic sport. I don’t know if it’s in this year’s games or not. I expect not, as finding someone who likes pentathlon and can afford both the horse and the training time has gotten difficult.
Too bad. I think it’s pretty cool.
Hold on, what’s this about MP being discontinued???
If it is that’s news to me. I know for a fact that MP has been held at the Olympics in recent memory. I competed against several pentathletes in my fencing days (1980’s); they fence epee, same as I did, so one or two would always turn up at the major competitions.
(IIRC, the pentathlon epee match is determined by three… or it it just one??.. touches, not the usual five needed in a fencing bout; the reason is to more closely simulate a battlefield swordfight.)
Regarding foolsguinea’s comment that MP is a sport that no one can afford, fear not – no one has to; Uncle Sam picks up the tab. There is (was?) a Pentathlon training facility in, IIRC, San Antonio, affiliated with one of the branches of the military. MP has always been a soldierly endeavor (remember, Gen’l. Patton competed in the MP in one of the Olympics) because the whole sequence of sports is meant to mimic the heroic journey of an ancient Greek army currier.
And cricket was one of the events held in 1904.
No mention of the most arduous event ever in the olympics. Between 1912 and 1948, the gruelling sport of Town Planning (!!) was included.
I’m prepared to be corrected on this, as I read it in an airline magazine. Must look for a better sauce.
Discontinued Olympic Events
-Live Pigeon Shooting (In the 1900 games) I know a few New Yorkers that would love to blast those rats out of the sky
-100-meter freestyle for sailors (1896 Olympics in Athens) Why just Sailors?
-1904 all-around dumbbell weightlifting contest Insert your own dumbbell joke here
-plunge for distance-diving (1904 St Louis Olympics) Competitors performed a standing dive, and their distance underwater was measured. Very weird
-equestrian high jump (1904 St Louis) Yes, equestrian and high jumping. Two sports for the price of one! Before the Fosbury Flop thank god
-obstacle race (1904 St Louis) I think the commitee was made up of loons in 1904. Basically this was a obstacle course
-Tug of War (sport through 1920) First team to pull their opponents 6 ft won Interesting tidbit: In the 1908 Games, the U.S. team accused the British of wearing boots with spikes.
-Rope climbing, croquet and club swinging(?) (all medal events at one time) What the hell is club swinging?
-Underwater swimming (1900 Olympics) Swimmers earned two points for each meter they swam and one point for each second they stayed under water. I wonder if anyone drowned in this one?
-Motor Boating (1908) Why?
-Polo (played in all olympics up till the 34)
and the granddaddy of all ‘odd events’
-figure riding (1920 Games) Competitors had to climb over and under the horse and do some fairly weird things. Imagining something like this borders on obscene.