Agantuk's Desk – Explore, Implore, Reverberate

The Tokyo Olympics is around the corner after a year of delay due to the pandemic. All eyes are now on Tokyo and what the athletes do this time. While the usual range of athletics sports draws the most attention, there are some bizarre sports that can make you go crazy. 

Every year, the Olympics include certain sports which aren’t there regularly but get included from time to time. It may be as simple as the game of archery. However, beyond the alternative entries, some unusual sports get added every year. 

Let’s check out some of these unusual sports on World Olympics Day.

1.Pigeon Shooting

This is the most bizarre Olympics sport of all time. You must be thinking how did the Olympics committee get convinced to include it in the 1900 Paris Games?.

Although pigeon shooting was an Olympics sport for just a year, it led to the death of 300 pigeons.  Yes, that’s how crazy they were back then. The IOC has never acknowledged this sport on their official website but innumerable sources have mentioned it in the event. 

This hunting-type Olympian sport needed every participant to shoot live pigeons and missing 2 consecutive shots led to elimination. Leon de Lunden of Belgium became the undisputed king of pigeon shooting in that Olympics by winning 21 medals. 

But the organizers were red-faced as the venue was littered with pigeon carcasses, prompting animal rights protests. 

Later on, clay pigeons replaced actual pigeons but that couldn’t rescue the sport and it soon fell out of favour. 

2. Trampoline

Remember the fun game of jumping on the trampoline that you did as a kid? Well, that’s an Olympic sport now and you could well become an Olympian. 

Trampoline entered the Olympics back in 2000. So, it’s been just 21 years since we have got to know the world’s leading trampolinists. 

However, being an Olympic trampolinist requires plenty of acrobatics skills and not just simple jumping on the trampoline. 

Trampolinists are judged by their ability to perform at least 10 different acrobatic movements in the Olympics and based on that they get scores from 5 judges. 

As of now, Canada has bagged the pole position in Trampoline by securing 6 medals since 2000. 

3. Deer Shooting

Much like pigeon shooting, this too was a bizarre hunting-type game that got included in the 1908 London Olympics. 

However, unlike the pigeon shooting sports, this one didn’t have live deers rather moving deer cutouts. 

The deer cutouts had circular targets which zipped past participants standing 100 meters away at a speed of 23 meters and they had to shoot it in 2 shots. 

Swedish sportsman Oscar Swahn was the most celebrated performer of this event. After this event, he became the oldest gold medalist with both individual and team event medal. He was 60 when he made his Olympics debut in this sport in 1908. 

Deer Shooting later got eliminated from  Olympics sports but it did enjoy a brief stint in the Olympics for nearly 10 years. Oscar continued to play on all the events till 1920. He won a silver in the 1920 deer Shooting event. 

4. Club Swinging

Yes, the game of moving bowling pin-shaped clubs around the body was an Olympics sport once. Crazy isn’t it? 

As a sport, club Swinging made its debut back in the 1904 Olympics and it continued to be an Olympics sport for 28 years until the 1932 summer Olympics. 

  This sport came during the time of the Great Depression when hungry and unemployed sportsmen like George Roth of America won gold. 

Roth had won the Club Swinging gold medal in front of 60,000 people at the 1932 Olympics and moments later he went home. 

That was how dry the game was. The pattern of the game was like any other rhythmic gymnastics of today where you have to showcase different movements. Only here it was with the bowling clubs. 

5. Tug of War

Everyone’s favourite childhood game was once an Olympics sport. Who knew we could strike gold with a tug of war? Apparently, the 1900 Paris Olympics sportsmen did. 

Another unusual sport that made it to the Olympics that year and went on to enjoy its status for 20years until the 1920 Olympics. 

This track and field game needed 8 people on both sides of the rope for the Olympics and you need to pull the opponent team by 6feet in 5 mins to win. In case the time limit was exhausted with no conclusive results, the team who pulled the furthest was declared the winner. 

It became even more bizarre when the US team alleged that the British team had won illegally as they had advantageous footwear in the 1908 Olympics. 

6. Steeplechase

This weird Olympic sport is a cross between track events and water hurdles. Officially included as a track and field supports, steeplechase requires athletes to race for 3000 metres by conquering a small hurdle of water body in the track. 

Astonishingly, this 1900 introduced Olympics sport is still part of the Olympics and often gets included in the games. It’s considered the longest obstacle track event. In 2008, the International Olympics Committee included steeplechase in the Olympics. 

So far Kenya is the most successful steeplechase nation followed by Finland and Sweden. Kenya has won medals in steeplechase events since the 1968 Olympics barring in 1974 and 1980. Kenya also has the most medals in women’s steeplechase, winning 3 out 9 that were awarded. 

7. BMX

Nobody ever thought that a motor racing sport like BMX would be an Olympics sport one day until the 2008 summer Olympics. 

This riding sport became an Olympics sport based on its racing capacity. It’s judged  by time. The person completing the BMX racing in the shortest time gets to be the winner. Other elements of the sport like dirt jumping, freestyling etc don’t make any difference in BMX in the Olympics. 

BMX racing is a recurrent event in every summer Olympics since its introduction in 2008

In the last Olympics, Connor Fields from America won the BMX gold with 34.642 racing time. The Netherlands bagged the silver while Colombia settled for bronze in the 2016 event. 32 people from 21 nations participated in the BMX racing in the 2016 Olympics. 

So, there you go the most unusual Olympics sports from past and present Olympic games. Which one is your favourite? Do you have a favourite game that should absolutely be in the Olympics? Let us know! Who knows you could be the next Olympian.