When the first modern Olympics kicked off in Athens in 1896, it wasn’t clear they’d last. After a so-so debut, the Olympic Games continued in 1900 and 1904, but not as a main attraction. Both were part of the world’s fairs in Paris and St. Louis, respectively.
“This is difficult for us to sort of conceive in the modern age,” says Craig Greenham, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Windsor in Ontario, but the 1900 and 1904 Olympics were “second fiddle to the world’s fairs.”
In fact, some people who attended the world’s fairs ended up signing up for and competing in the Olympic Games while they were there, Greenham says.
The Olympic Games in the early 20th century were still trying to find their footing, and some of their events might seem a bit unusual to today’s sports fans.
Here are some of the quirkier discontinued Olympic competitions, as well as a couple of ancient games that never crossed over to the modern Olympics.
1. Chariot Racing (circa 684 B.C. to A.D. 393)
The first Olympic Games in ancient Greece took place in Olympia around 776 B.C. and likely included only one event: a foot race. Over time, organizers added more sports to the Olympics, including chariot racing. Starting around 684 or 680 B.C., drivers raced each other in horse-drawn chariots at the Olympics, sometimes violently crashing into one another.
Only boys and men could participate in Olympic events as athletes, but wealthy women could sponsor chariots. Because it was a chariot’s sponsor who received the victory title, not the racer himself, this was the only way women could “win” at the Olympics. The first known woman to do so was the Spartan princess Cynisca, whose chariot was victorious at the Olympics in 396 and 392 B.C.
2. Pankration (circa 648 B.C. to A.D. 393)
Pankration, a mix between boxing and wresting, was one of the more brutal ancient Olympic sports. “There were only two rules,” says Gary Heaston, a tour guide at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs. “You could not gouge out your opponent’s eyes and you couldn’t bite your opponent.”
One prominent athlete in the sport was Arrachion, who reportedly died while competing in pankration at the Olympics in 564 B.C. Ancient sources say Arrachion’s opponent was choking him at the same time that Arrachion dislocated one of his opponent’s joints. Arrachion died of suffocation just as his opponent made the sign to surrender, leading officials to posthumously declare Arrachion the winner.
3. Hot Air Balloon Racing (1900)
The 1896 Olympics lasted less than two weeks; but the 1900 Olympics, which were tied to the months-long world’s fair in Paris, ran from May to October. With the expanded time frame, the 1900 Olympics featured many more athletes and events than the 1896 games, including multiple types of hot air balloon contests.
Hot air balloon drivers competed in terms of distance traveled, altitude reached and best photograph taken from a balloon (kite flying contests were also part of the balloon events). The French balloonist Henry de La Vaulx won one of the distance races by flying his balloon 768 miles from Paris to Poland, which was then part of Russia. When he landed, Russian police took him into custody for not filing a passport request.
Asked about his time in a Russian jail, he replied: “The Russian officers persecuted me by the opening of so many bottles of French champagne that I was in great distress.”
4. Live Pigeon Shooting (1900)
Another event that debuted at the 1900 Olympics was live pigeon shooting. In this contest, organizers released pigeons into the air in front of a competitor, who then shot as many as possible. The winner was a Belgian man named Leon de Lun, who shot 21 pigeons.
Altogether, the competitors killed around 300 pigeons, writes Jeremy Fuchs in Total Olympics: Every Obscure, Hilarious, Dramatic, and Inspiring Tale Worth Knowing. Like hot air balloon racing, live pigeon shooting only appeared at the Olympics once.
5. Tug of War (1900 to 1920)
Tug of War had a little more staying power. The sport appeared at five Olympic Games before organizers retired it, and it managed to stir up some controversy along the way. At the 1908 Olympics in London, the Americans accused Liverpool police officers of foul play because they wore such heavy boots to the tug of war match.
Over a century later, tug of war enthusiasts are still trying to get the Olympics to bring the sport back. The Tug of War International Federation has campaigned for the International Olympic Committee, or IOC, to reinstate tug of war. Although the sport won’t officially appear at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, there will be a demonstration event.
6. Pistol Dueling (1906 to 1908)
In 1906, Athens hosted something called the Intercalated Olympic Games, which the IOC doesn’t recognize as an official Olympics event. Even so, this Olympic-branded games helped keep the momentum for the Olympics going after the two less-than-organized world’s fair games. The 1906 Intercalated Olympic Games even introduced customs that later became standard at the official Olympics, like the parade of nations.
Another feature the 1906 games introduced was pistol dueling. Instead of shooting at real people, Fuchs writes in Total Olympics that competitors shot at dummies. The event appeared again at the 1908 London Olympics, only this time competitors did shoot at each other—with wax bullets.
7. Painting (1912 to 1948)
Starting with the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm and continuing until the 1948 games in London, the Olympics held art competitions in painting as well as sculpture, music, architecture and literature.
Some people competed in both the sports and arts competitions, and two people even won medals in both arenas. American Walter Winans won a gold medal in shooting at the 1908 Olympics and a gold medal in sculpture in 1912. Hungarian Alfred Hajos won two gold medals in swimming in 1896, and a silver in architecture at the Paris Olympics in 1924.
The IOC supposedly retired the art contests because so many competitors were professional artists, and the Olympics were supposed to highlight amateurs (i.e., people who didn’t get paid for their athletic or artistic talent). The amateur rule was something the IOC enforced—often controversially—in athletic contests until the 1990s, when it began allowing professional athletes to compete.
