The 2024 Paris Olympics featured breakdancing for the first time, as well as other unconventional Olympic events like surfing and skateboarding. But there is a long history of unusual events being held at the Olympic Games of the past. Just ask a hot air balloon aficionado.
Pigeon shooting
Live pigeon shooting may be the "weirdest and most bizarre Olympic event of all time," said NPR . It occurred at the 1900 Olympic Games (which also took place in Paris ) and was won by Leon de Lunden of Belgium.
Pigeon shooting "may not have been an official Olympic sport, either — the IOC barely acknowledges Mr. de Lunden or the event in its archives," said NPR. But today, regular, non-avian shooting remains popular at the summer games, typically involving the use of clay pigeons.
Hot air ballooning
Also taking place in the 1900 Olympic Games was hot air ballooning, also the only time in history that this event has occurred. But what does hot air ballooning as a competitive event even look like?
The ballooning schedule "included competitions for free (gas) balloons (distance, altitude, duration, minimum distance from a point fixed in advance, longest distance traveled, and photography from a balloon), weather (sounding) balloons, and kites," said the National Air and Space Museum . There were also event celebrations and an "event involving "historic balloons and Montgolfières," the latter being a French term for a hot air balloon.
Horse jumping
We are not talking about equestrian events , which remain commonplace at the Summer Olympics. Rather, this was a competition to see how high and far the horses themselves could jump.
Also taking place at the 1900 games, the "long and high jump, traditionally contested in athletics, were transposed to the equestrian arena for the first and only time in Olympic history," said the Olympic website. On the last day, 18 horses "took part in what was billed as the 'high jump championship,'" with the two horses that shared gold "both [clearing] a bar 1.85m off the ground."
Dueling
Yes, dueling — with live ammunition — was an official event at the 1906 Olympic games in Athens and a staple of the 1908 Olympic Games in London.
In 1906, the contestants "would shoot a pistol with wax bullets at dummies made of plaster that were dressed as real people," said WXIA-TV Atlanta . But in the 1908 games, it was decided to "increase the danger by getting rid of the dummies and having athletes shoot the wax bullets at each other. The athletes "wore protective coverings, but injuries were not unavoidable as an athlete lost the skin between his thumb and pointer finger during a duel."
Poodle clipping
The 1908 Olympics seem to have an affinity for unusual events, and poodle clipping is no different. It involved "128 competitors performing in front of a crowd of 6,000," said GQ . It was not a competition to see who could groom the dogs the best. Rather, the competitors "had to clip the fur off as many poodles as they could in two hours."
There is a caveat, as poodle clipping "was, admittedly, only a test event, meaning it didn't have full Olympic status," said GQ. Despite this, it remains one of the more unusual events in Olympic history.
The arts
In prior years, some competitors brought a unique tool with them to Olympic competitions: a paintbrush. For the "first four decades of competition, the Olympics awarded official medals for painting , sculpture, architecture, literature and music, alongside those for the athletic competitions," said Smithsonian Magazine .
This mainly occurred in games from 1912 to 1952, when "juries awarded a total of 151 medals to original works in the fine arts inspired by athletic endeavors." But the practice has long been discontinued, and today "even Olympics fanatics are unaware that arts, along with athletics, were a part of the modern Games."
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