Over the last couple of weeks we’ve shared some really weird sports like cheese rolling and chess with fighting that will never make it into the Olympics, or will they ?
Getting a sport included in the Olympics is a complicated business and there’s always controversy when a sport is cut from the games. For the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games, the Olympic committee rejected Karate, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and a form of Chinese Kung fu called Wushu. This week, we look at the strangest sports that have been cut from the games over the last 100 years.
Duelling pistol This event was first held in 1906 and required competitors to shoot at human silhouettes dressed in frock coats with a bull’s eye on the dummy’s chest. Shooters held the pistol at their side, loaded, coked and then were counted down by the range officer. A bullseye was worth 5 points and competitors had 30 shots overall. Could have made an interested DADS v DADS special event 🤣.
Tug-of-war A playground classic, tug-of-war was also a key part of the ancient Olympic and was first held at the modern Olympics from 1900 to 1920 as part of track and field. It was contested between two teams of eight, with the winner requiring to pull the other team 6 feet along to win.
Underwater Swimming Held just once in the Paris 1900 Olympics. Competitors would swim 60m as fast as they could underwater. Was eventually axed because it wasn’t much fun to watch as a spectator 🤣would be OK now again with underwater cameras!
Tandem 2000m Cycling A long-time sport in the Olympics, only being cancelled in 1972. Great Britain was the most successful at the event, winning the medals of any country with 6, including one gold medal.
Running Deer shooting was on the Olympic programme between 1908 to 1948. No actual deers were harmed in the event, with a deer shaped target being pulled across a firing range. Competitors would have one or two shots to target the deer at each round, and different targets on the deer were worth different points.
Before we got so busy with the football we thought DADSVDADS would branch out to other sports, maybe it will eventually, maybe we’ll even get the pistol duelling started! In the mean time, we’ll see you at your match night next week!
