There are a couple of contentious events at the ongoing Paris 2024 Olympics, with the introduction of breakdancing the main point of minor controversy. Still, everything seems pretty normal, especially compared to the competitions that made the Olympics the first time they came to Paris.
From painting and pistol-dueling, to tug of war and a swimming obstacle course, here’s a list of the weirdest events to feature in the modern Olympics.
It’s quite fitting we’re compiling this list now. Not only are the Olympics well underway, but they are back in Paris, which played host to much of the weirdness found below. The French were instrumental in the launch of the Modern Olympics, and after the inaugural event was staged in the Olympics’ ancestral home of Greece, in 1896, four years later, the privilege fell to Paris.
France’s capital hosted the games again in 1924, and was chosen to host them once more, 100 years later, in 2024. Only Paris and London have now hosted three Summer Olympic games, with Los Angeles set to join that list in 2028.
Not since 1900, however, have the Olympic competitions been so utterly bizarre. Below is a list of our favorite kooky competitions from those Summer Games, with a few other peculiar competitions that featured during the 20th century.
Swimming Obstacle Course
We will begin in 1900, when organizers in Paris asked swimmers to do more than just swim. The event took place in the city’s River Seine, and after emerging from the water, athletes had to climb up a pole and then over a series of boats, before returning to the river and swimming under another set of boats.
Not everything has changed since then – the Australians still excel at swimming. The champion, back in 1900, was an Aussie called Fred Lane. Sadly there is no obstacle course this time around, as this one sounds pretty fun to watch.
Cycle Polo
Cycle polo made an appearance as a demonstration sport during the 1908 London Olympics. It’s basically exactly what it sounds like – traditional polo, but with bicycles instead of horses.
There was only one match that took place. Shepherd’s Bush, London, played host to the Irish Bicycle Polo Association against the German club Deutscher Radfahrer Bund, whose members were cyclists participating in the track cycling competitions.
The Irish team emerged victorious, defeating the German club 3–1.
Art
This event didn’t start until Stockholm in 1912, but it had France at its core. Parisian aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin first founded the International Olympics Committee in 1894, and it was his idea to award medals for the sport-inspired artwork. This covered mediums such as literature, music, painting and sculpture.
It was eventually abandoned, but not until 1948, and not for a lack of sporting intensity. Apparently, officials decided that artists were professional, which went against the amateur ethos of the Olympics at the time.
Just to give you a hint of what the judges were after, here is part of the gold medal-winning poem in 1912, written by a French poet named Charles Louis Prosper Guyot: “The runners bend, tense flowers, … / A shot: A violent word! / And suddenly / Necks extended, forward / like stalks / faces like pale snatched / apples, / teeth and jaws rushing into / space.”
Horse High Jump and Horse Long Jump
High jump? Normal. Long jump? Normal. Horses show jumping? Of course. Yet somehow the idea of horses competing in the high jump and long jump is peculiar, if quite amusing.
It was again Paris in 1900 that hosted these events, where Belgian Constant van Langendonck’s horse Extra Dry won the long jump with a distance of 6.10 meters. In the high jump, there was a tie for first. France’s Dominique Garderes on Canela and Italy’s Gian Giorgio Trissino on Oreste both reached heights of 1.85 meters.
Live Pigeon Shooting
Yep, not sure you’d get away with this one anymore. Clay pigeon shooting is still pretty common, but shooting live pigeons for sport wouldn’t go down as well on our television screens.
Live pigeon shooting only happened once, back in – you guessed it – 1900. Over 300 birds were killed in total, and the gold medal was claimed by Belgium’s Leon de Lunden, who successfully shot 21 pigeons. France’s Maurice Faure secured the silver by downing 20 birds, while the bronze was shared by Americans Donald Mackintosh and Crittenden Robinson, each having hit 18 pigeons.
Pistol Dueling
Another head-turner, but pistol dueling is actually marginally more normal than it sounds. Instead of shooting at other gentlemen, as was done to settle disputes once upon a time, Olympic pistol duelers would shoot mannequins, kitted out in their Sunday best with a big target on their chest.
Read More: Why is baseball so big in Japan?
Pistol dueling only happened once, in 1912, but is another that has fallen victim to a bit of internet misinformation. Legend goes that two duelers shot at each other at the London 1908 games, but this was just a sporting demonstration nearby, rather than part of the Olympics.
Tug of War
It might have seemed weird at the beginning, but Tug of War seems sensible compared to some of the events listed above.
It took place from Paris 1900 to Antwerp 1920, with an exception in 1916 when the Olympics were canceled due to the First World War. Competitive tug of war involved two teams of eight trying to pull their opponents over six feet over a line, with a clock ticking down from five minutes.
Roque and Croquet
The chances are you’ve never heard of roque. Even in 1904, when it was introduced to the St. Louis Olympics in Missouri, most people in the world had never heard of it. Only Americans played it, and therefore only Americans competed, which unsurprisingly drew criticism from other countries, as America won a gold medal.
Roque is apparently very similar to croquet, only it was played on a hard surface and with solid boundary walls. Croquet could appear in this list in its own right, after appearing once at the 1900 games and never again.
Poodle Clipping
You might have heard of Olympic poodle-clipping, but we’re afraid it appears to be one of the best April Fools jokes ever orchestrated. In 2008, the Telegraph newspaper decided they would invent an Olympic event and see how many people believed it. Well, they are tricking people to this day. They invented a story involving hundreds of poodles and thousands of spectators. If this tricked you, surely the winner’s name, Avril Lafoule (who purportedly clipped 17 poodles to take gold), should have been a give away. Yep, so sadly there is no record of poodle-clipping occurring at the 1900 Olympics, despite what the internet would have you believe…
So there we have it. Which of these sports, if any, would you like to see return for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028?
