Other Discarded Olympic Ideas
- Real Tennis
- This game (under its French name 'Jeu de Paume') appeared in the 1908 Olympics. It's not the game
known to Andy Murray and Roger Federer, but the original Tennis as played by Henry V, Henry VIII
and other monarchs. It's played on special courts (there are now probably fewer than 50 playable courts
in the world, about half in Britain), with shots off the walls and the sloping roof of the side
gallery being a regular part of the fun. The rules are fiendishly complicated, but can be read
here. To see some present-day action,
Click Here.
- High Jump, Long Jump
- Yes, but for horses? This was in the 1900 Olympics in Paris. To take part in any equestrian event before
1952, you needed to be in the Armed Forces -- and male, and an Officer.
- Motorboating
- This sport featured only in the 1908 London Olympics. Few could afford the boats needed to take part;
even fewer could keep their boats going for long enough. There were three categories of competition,
with only one boat finishing in each.
- Olympic Events Which Never Happened
- The organisers of the 1912 Stockholm Olympics suggested two extra sets of Olympic awards: one for Mountain
Ascents and one for Game Shooting. These could hardly be staged in the same fashion as an Athletics
meeting or Wrestling tournament, so they called for nominations of achievements in the two areas from the
years 1908 to 1911. Naturally, they set up two committees to process nominations: both came to similar
conclusions, declaring that there was no realistic basis for making the awards and declining to
make any nominations.
- Olympic Events Which Should Never Have Happened
- 1900 Olympics, Paris: Live Pigeon Shooting
(The 1900 Games were such an organisational shambles that nobody is now sure whether some events
were official Olympic events, part of the International
Exhibition going on at the same time, or just something which took place during the months through
which the Games drifted on).