Why you won't see tug of war, duelling and live pigeon shooting at the Paris Olympics

The modern games has a history of sporting oddities that have since vanished from the programme

The US tug-of-war team during the 1908 London Olympics at White City Stadium. Getty Images

When the gold medals are handed out in Paris later this month, there will be a notable absence of Olympic champions in tug of war, polo or ballooning.

While 32 different sporting disciplines will be part of this year’s Summer Olympics, many others have fallen by the wayside over the years.

If we go back to the original competition held in Athens until the second century, events like the sprint, boxing and discus throwing would be as familiar to us as they would be to the ancient Greeks.

However, there are some striking differences to the modern games. For example, all the competitors were male and competed naked. Other changes in the modern games are the absence of chariot and mule cart racing and the competition for heralds.

A different time

The predecessor to the modern Olympics is generally accredited to the small market town of Much Wenlock in Shropshire, England, where Dr William Penny Brookes established an Olympian Society in 1850 “for the promotion of the moral, physical and intellectual improvement of the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood”.

The Much Wenlock Olympics first took place in 1861 and included categories such as Penny Farthing cycle racing, wheelbarrow racing and quoits, which involved throwing a rubber ring over a spike, as well as football and track and field events.

The annual contest grew in popularity, attracting competitors and spectators from across Britain. In 1890, the games were visited by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who was inspired to create the International Olympic Committee. He would also become its founding president.

The first modern Olympic Games, as we now know them, took place in Athens in 1896. Nine sporting disciplines were showcased, almost of all which will be in Paris this July, although long and high jumping for horses no longer feature in the equestrian events.

A ropy affair

Gymnastics also saw rope climbing, which involved 14 metres of rope suspended from a frame. At St Louis in 1904, the gold medal was won by the American George Eyser, despite having a wooden leg, likely making him the world's first Paralympian. Rope climbing was discontinued after 1932.

The first Paris games of 1900 saw a greatly expanded number of sports, several of which now seem truly bizarre. 200-metre obstacle swimming saw competitors first climb a pole, swim under one boat moored in the River Seine, climb over another and then under a final boat before reaching shore.

Paris 1900 also saw Tug of War introduced, surviving as an Olympic event until 1924. Croquet also made its sole appearance at the summer games, but was dropped after the official report noted it had “hardly any pretensions to athleticism”.

For the target shooting in Paris, live pigeons were used. After the slaughter of 300 birds, clay targets were substituted for future competitions, today called skeet shooting. Animal lovers will be reassured to know the 100m running deer contest, which ran until 1948, only ever involved wooden targets.

The most unusual sports have always fallen in the demonstration category, meaning they are included to promote their interest, but are excluded from the official medal count.

Cycle polo and duelling were part of the 1908 London games, but have not since been featured. Icelandic wrestling, known as glima, made its first and last appearance at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Gliding at the Berlin games of 1936, water skiing at Munich in 1972, and roller hockey at the 1992 Barcelona games have all only featured once.

Unofficial sports were also part of the early Olympics. The list is long and bizarre with angling, ballooning, cannon shooting, firefighting, kite flying and motorboat racing among the highlights.

Old attitudes

In 1904, the St Louis Olympics coincided with the Worlds Fair which featured 1,400 indigenous peoples from countries across the world exhibited in their “natural habitats” at a human zoo.

These games featured anthropology days when the “natives” were encouraged to take part in Olympic sports. Indigenous people from the Philippines and Central Africa were unfamiliar with the rules of lawn tennis was taken as a demonstration of the now-discredited science of eugenics and their “racial inferiority”.

The 1936 Berlin Olympics and the achievements of American sprinter Jesse Owens would one and for all show these theories as dangerous nonsense.

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