Discontinued Sports of the Olympic Games

The enormous number and diversity of sports that have been part of the Olympics, either as official or unauthorized exhibition sports, is interesting. Since the inaugural modern Olympic Games in 1896, at least40sports and events have been dropped entirely from the program.

Since 1896, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has taken significant choices, notably which sports are to be included and left out at the Olympics. Because of their international appeal, sporting events are added, canceled, and occasionally resurrected.

Previously, the host country would frequently add its own sports. Some of the defunct events were simply converted to metric distances or morphed into today’s well-known events, with track and field, and swimming in particular. In addition to the removed sports, plenty of discontinued sporting events are still on the program.

What sports have been removed from the Olympics?

The inaugural Olympic Games were held from April 6 to April15, 1896, on a much smaller scale than the contemporary Games. There were just 14 nations represented, and a total of 241 athletes competed, all of them were from Europe or the United States. Track and field athletics, gymnastics, cycling, swimming, fencing, shooting, tennis, weightlifting, wrestling, and road and track events were among the ten events.

Paris 2024 logos seen at Bercy Arena the venue of Artistic Gymnastics event ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 22, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images)

Since then, throughout history, there have been various other sports that have taken part in the Olympics, some may sound extremely bizzare at the moment, likeBallooning, Kite flying, Life saving, Pigeon racing, Wheelchair racing, and some even belonged to the Winter Olympics, such asFigure skating, and Ice Hockey, so one might understand why these sports were once discontinued.

While the list of sports that had completely disappeared from the schedule was 40 at Tokyo 2020, it increased to 43 at Paris 2024 as the following three sports were also removed: baseball, karate, and softball. Here’sthe full list of sports removed from the Summer Olympics:

1. American football
2. Angling
3. Art competitions
4. Australian football
5. Ballooning
6. Baseball
7. Boules
8. Bowling
9. Budo
10. Cannon shooting
11. Cricket
12. Croquet
13. Cycle polo
14. Figure skating
15. Fire fighting
16. Gaelic football
17. Gliding
18. Glima
19. Hurling
20. Ice hockey
21. Jeu de paume
22. Kaatsen
23. Karate
24. Kite flying
25. Korfball
26. Lacrosse
27. Life saving
28. Longue paume
29. Motor racing
30. Motorcycle racing
31. Pesäpallo
32. Pigeon racing
33. Polo
34. Rackets
35. Roller hockey
36. Roque
37. Rugby union
38. Savate
39. Softball
40. Tug of war
41. Water motorsports
42. Water skiing
43. Wheelchair racing