The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games will take place in Tokyo on Friday at 1:00 p.m. We are taking this as an opportunity to introduce you to some sports that unfortunately – fortunately – are no longer Olympic.
The Olympic Games are much more than “just” athletics and swimming. The two sports are of course indispensable and have been part of the program since they were first held in Athens in 1896. But after all, you want to keep up with the times and so it is important to prevent standstill. This year, too, new sports will be taken up with karate, soft and baseball as well as surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing. But there have been much crazier “experiments”.
In 1900 a real bloodbath was wrought in Paris. Because there was not shot at clay pigeons, but at real pigeons. Leon de Lunden killed 21 pigeons on the way to the gold medal – a total of over 300 animals paid for their involuntary participation with their lives. It is thanks to angry animal rights activists that this insanity was not repeated. We don’t even bother looking for image or video material.
The sport arose for reasons of self-defense while walking. After the end of the French Revolution in 1799, the aristocrats in France were no longer allowed to carry weapons such as sabers or pistols. In order to be able to defend themselves against the common people, they used their walking stick. From this a sport developed over time and it was Olympic from 1900 to 1924 – and walking stick fencing is still practiced today.
One rope, two teams. Both try to pull the opposing team over a certain point. Between 1900 and 1920 it was actually an Olympic discipline. At that time, the sport did not inspire young or old, in 1900 there were only two teams and also in the following games there were never more than five. The local curriculum custodians are more persistent. Even today school children are forced to pull on ropes. The enthusiasm was, so the author remembers, very limited.
A sport that would suit today’s zeitgeist was Olympic in Paris in 1900: 200 m obstacle swimming. The participants had to swim through the polluted Seine, climbing over a boat and diving under a boat. Finally, the participants had to climb a rope – quite tricky when your legs are pulled away by the current. The Australian Frederick Lane mastered the course in 2.38 minutes and secured gold. Unfortunately there was no social media back then, otherwise his follower numbers would have exploded.
Sack races are likely to be familiar to one or the other from their school days or from actively organized children’s birthdays. But at the Olympic Games in St. Louis in 1904, this sport was also about medals. We don’t have any pictures from yesteryear to hand, but there are plenty of videos on the Internet. If the IOC really wants to get more young people excited about the Olympic Games again, then the decision-makers should think about a comeback of the sack race.
In the “Western Olympics” in 1904 there was a 400-meter race in which the athletes had to jump through a barrel every 50 meters – the lid and bottom were carefully removed. In this sport, which is still practiced in some places today, the barrel hangs roughly waist-high on ropes. The runners jump through it head first and roll on landing to then continue the run. A pretty fascinating sport that should actually be trending these days.
Picture:
wikipedia
Horse long jump / horse high jump
In 1900 in Paris not only were pigeons shot and obstacles overcome in the dirty water, horse long jump and horse high jump were also included in the program. The Belgian Constant van Langhendonck won the long jump with his stallion “Extra Dry” (6.10 meters). In the horse jump, the Italian Giovanni Giorgio Trissino on his horse Oreste and the French Dominique Gardères on Canéla shared the victory with a jump height of 1.85 meters. Trissino was not only first, he also came fourth with his horse Melopo. After the games, the two disciplines were abolished again.
Why did this sport become Olympic? Well, because the largest American producer of chewing tobacco at the time was based in St. Louis. And spitting tobacco is said to have been the workers’ favorite sport, how could the Olympic Committee have taken a stand? The winner never had a chance to defend the title. After 1904, medals were no longer spat at the Olympic Games. It’s actually a shame, there would have been a healthy alternative for a long time, spitting the cherry pit. What would we cheer for in this country if World record holder (22.52 meters) Thomas Steinhauer put the cherry stone on your tongue, shape your mouth into a cannon, and give the perfectly prepared cherry stone wings …
