The Paris Olympics are only a week away and the sports fans must be bustling with joy ahead of the event. The games will kick off from July 26 and will last till August 11. The Paris Games will feature 32 sports and a total of 11,215 athletes to compete across those sports. With the Olympics holding a crucial significance in the world of sports, it becomes pivotal to know the history of the sports played in the past. Today we take a look at some of the bizarre sports played in the Olympics and which were discarded from the Olympic Programmes later.
The 200m obstacle race
It was an unusual swimming event played in the 1900 Olympics. The sport seemed pretty complex but it was a lot of fun too. It was a combination of swimming and an obstacle race. The athlete has to climb over a pole, then scramble over a row of boats and then swim under another row of boats. It made a sole appearance in 1900 but the event was a fan favourite.
The event was held on the River Seine and the swimmer had to complete a distance of 200 meters during the whole course. Frederick Lane from Australia won the event by clocking a timing of 2:38.4,
Solo Synchronized Swimming
The event lasted for only three Olympics before it was folded out by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The sport lasted between 1984 and 1992 but the organizers wrapped it up due to some limitations. In 1984, U.S. swimmer Tracie Ruiz won the gold medal.
The critics of the sport pointed out that it is difficult to determine the participating swimmer’s competition as he has no one to coordinate with him. However, organisers claimed that the swimmer is supposed to match with the music during his/her routine.
Now, the team event is played in the Olympics but solo event still exists outside the Games. Technical and free solo events are played in the a few events.
Rope Climbing
The sport of rope climbing was included in the Olympics as a part of the gymnastic events. The maiden appearance of the sport was in Hellenic Games in 1859 and then the event was added to the gymnastics program in 1896 again. The sport featured at regular intervals in the Olympics over the years till 1932.
Competitors started in a seating position on the floor, and they had to climb the rope in the shortest time possible using only hands and legs. In 1896, the length of the rope was 14 meters but in the rest of the editions the rope was only about 8 meters.
Motorboating
Another one-edition sport, motorboat racing, appeared in the 1908 Games only for a single edition. There were three categories in the sport - the eight-meter, 60-foot and open class.
The event was strictly for men and the races involved racing five laps around a designated course. Average speed by the racers was around 19 mph. The event was marred by the weather as six out of the nine races were canceled. Further, it wasn’t a sport which earned a lot of viewership. Thus, the sport was folded and even the Olympic charter states “Sports, disciplines or events in which performance depends essentially on mechanical propulsion are not acceptable.”
Croquet
Croquet was another sport which had a very short stint in the Olympic games as it lasted only for the 1900 edition. However, it remained France’s most successful sport as they won all of the medals as no athletes from other countries participated in the event. It was a big flop in the Olympics and even the official Olympic report described it as a sport with ‘hardly any pretensions to athleticism’.
The organizers still included roque four years later and the critics pointed out that it was just a trick to inflate their medal tally from the hosts as only American players participated in it.
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