Forgotten Olympic sports at Summer and Winter Games

The Olympics are one of the most consistent sporting traditions, but the athletic events that comprise the Games have often been in flux.

Every four years, Olympic coordinators are tasked with scheduling competitions for dozens of sports within a little more than a fortnight -- a constraint that has them constantly reconsidering which events they should add or drop.

Dozens of sports have been added, dropped and sometimes restored to the Games over the years. Among them are:

• Baseball and softball
• Basque pelota
• Cricket
• Croquet
• Golf
• Handball
• Ice hockey
• Jeu de Paume
• Karate
• Lacrosse
• Motor boating
• Polo
• Racquets
• Roque
• Rugby union
• Tug-of-war
• Tandem cycling
• Solo synchronized swimming
• Club swinging
• Tumbling
• Team gymnastics
• Rope climbing
• Underwater swimming
• Obstacle swimming
• Distance plunge
• High diving
• Fencing
• Pole archery

At the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, flag football will make its Olympic debut, while cricket, baseball, softball, lacrosse, and squash will return to the competition.

The IOC's cull

The 1896 program featured 43 events, primarily in sports popular in Europe at the time: running, swimming, shooting, wrestling, fencing, shooting  and tennis. Though organizers planned for boating events, low turnout forced them to cancel sailing, and inclement weather interrupted the planned rowing event. It was also the occasion of the first international marathon, won by a formerly unknown Greek amateur who became a national hero upon completing the feat.

By the next Olympics, officials more than doubled the number of events, adding more sports like soccer, cricket and polo. That year's 95 events, hosted by Paris, set a standard for subsequent Olympics. For the next several decades, most Games offered between 100 and 150 events apiece. That changed in 1964, when the Tokyo Games hosted a then-record 163 events. Through the end of the 20th century, the committee added an average of 12 new events to each iteration of the Olympic Games. The 2000s saw a drop in the rate of increase; the Games hosted 300 events in 2000, followed by 301 in 2004 and 302 in 2008.

Once events were widely televised and airtime became a complicating factor (even for host cities that could physically accommodate additional athletes and arenas), the IOC began to restrict new events and review the efficacy of existing ones.

While the 1955 Olympic Charter required a minimum number of popular sports, the 2007 version capped the number at 28. In 2014, the IOC switched from limiting the number of sports to capping the number of events.

The 1949 Olympic Charter was the first to require sports be "widely practiced," a criteria met at the time by proof that a sport was played in at least 10 countries. The criteria grew steadily more demanding, and proposals for new sports take into account their existing popularity, gender equality, ethics code, potential cost and business opportunities.

Nowadays, the IOC has a series of requirements for its sports. Every event included in the Games has to comply with the World Anti-Doping Code, the Olympic Charter and the Olympic Code for the Prevention of the Manipulation of Competition. A specific year's organizing committee is allowed to propose a new event be included for a single Games if the IOC has already recognized the sport's governing body.

In 2005, the committee decided for the first time in decades to eliminate sports. An anonymous simple-majority vote meant that baseball and softball got the boot, following a committee-ordered survey that confirmed the sports had little viewership -- and thus minimal revenue opportunity -- plus little infrastructure in some prospective host countries outside of Japan and the United States.

Both sports have appeared in subsequent games, enjoying relative prominence at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. That's not unique; both golf and rugby made comebacks at previous Games. But before 2016, golf hadn't appeared in the Olympics since 1904. A golf event was scheduled for 1908 but was canceled a few days before it was scheduled to begin. And while 15s rugby was cut from the Games after 1924, the committee allowed it to reincarnate as rugby sevens in 2016.

Demonstration sports

The tightly pruned list of official events needn't discourage fans of obscure sports from hoping to see their favorites on the Olympic stage. Beginning a few years after the reborn Olympics, host countries began staging demonstration sports, competitions intended to introduce a worldwide audience to local and emerging events without necessarily advocating for their inclusion in future Olympic Games.

Demonstration sports were officially introduced in 1924, when Paris had athletes compete in Basque pelota games, canne duels and savate fights. Athletes also participated in volleyball, canoeing and kayaking, which would go on to become official sports in later years.

Host countries have included local favorites like bowling, gliding, lacrosse and water skiing. Berlin even used its 1936 hosting gig as an opportunity to showcase traditional Indian sports including kabaddi, kho kho and mallakhamba.

The demonstration category also sometimes highlighted sports that would eventually become official.

Demonstration sports were suspended after the 1992 Summer Games. In 2020, the IOC instituted the system through which a host committee can propose the inclusion of qualified sports for its edition of the Games. The added sports for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles are: baseball/softball, flag football, lacrosse and squash.

Art competitions

Stretching the definition of athletics, dozens of Olympic Games included art competitions alongside athletics. Juries awarded medals to writers, sculptors, painters, musicians and architects who displayed work inspired by sports and athleticism. The practice was ultimately abandoned in the 1950s -- not because of the competition's lack of direct athletic skill, but because too many of the artists worked professionally, weakening the IOC's amateurs-only policy. A few years after the program's demise, it was effectively replaced by the Cultural Olympiad .

Original events

Historians have found little evidence of events being added to or removed from the ancient version of the Olympics.

In the original Olympics, men competed at contests in 10 categories designed to highlight ancient Greek athleticism, including martial arts, javelin, footraces and chariot races. Some events were recognizable precursors to modern sports, with stone discuses eventually giving way to metal ones, and long jumpers eventually losing the habit of jettisoning weights to launch themselves farther. Others, like the martial art of pankration for which the only rules were that contestants couldn't bite or gouge their opponents, have no equivalent in the current Games.

When a French aristocrat revived the Games in 1896, the chosen sports reflected the new ideals of the competing countries. Once the Games became a truly global event with other countries joining Europe and the United States on the field, organizers maintained that idealistic stance.

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