Live pigeon shooting, pistol dueling and club swinging won’t feature at the Beijing Olympics, but there was a time when they were all medal events.
Along with mainstream sports such as cricket, rugby and golf, they have all passed into Olympic history.
Live pigeon shooting featured for the first — and only — time at the Paris Olympics in 1900 where around 300 birds were killed. Belgium’s Leon de Lunden was champion for downing 21 birds, one more than runner-up Maurice Faure of France; Australia’s Donald MacIntosh was third with 18 kills.
There was also plenty of shooting going on at the Stockholm Games in 1912, when pistol dueling was staged.
Instead of traditional duels of honor at sunrise, this time there was no blood as competitors took aim only at dummies dressed in frock coats with the target placed at the throat.
Club swinging, the forerunner of rhythmic gymnastics, was a medal sport in 1904 at St Louis and in Los Angeles in 1932.
The US’ George Roth won the gold in 1932 when the Games were held in the midst of the Great Depression. Reports claimed that unemployed Roth was awarded his gold medal and then hitchhiked home.
The tug-of-war, so beloved of school sports days, was part of the track and field program and featured in the Olympics of 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920. The 1908 gold was won by a team of British policemen, but it was a controversial victory as the US protested over their rivals’ footwear.
A report at the time said the police team competed “in enormous shoes, so heavy, in fact, it was with great effort they could lift their feet from the ground.”
Cricket was played just once as an Olympic sport in Paris in 1900 and the gold medal was contested by Britain and France after Belgium and Holland pulled out.
The British side was a touring team, the Devon and Somerset Wanderers, while the French side was made up of expatriate Britons living in Paris.
Britain won the match, staged at the Velodrome de Vincennes, while their opponents were sniffily written off.
“The French temperament is too excitable to enjoy the game and no Frenchman can be persuaded to play more than once,” a newspaper report said.
Meanwhile, Rugby Union was held at the Olympics in 1900, 1908, 1920 and 1924, with the US claiming gold in the last two editions.
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