While some eventsβsuch as fencing, swimming, and tennisβdate back to the original Olympics in , there are some newer events like breaking, skateboarding, surfing, and sport climbing. TIME looks back at some of the wackiest sports that made appearances at past Olympics, either as official sports or as part of demonstrations. They may not be Olympic sports, but some still boast a dedicated following. Below are five of the most unusual sports that have taken place at the Olympics over the past century, as featured in Total Olympics, the trivia book by sports journalist Jeremy Fuchs.
At the Olympics in St. Louis, divers were judged by how far they floated without moving for 60 seconds. American swimmer William Paul Dickey won the contest, boasting a plunge of 62 feet and six inches.
During this bird-brained event at the games in Paris, live pigeons were set free in the air and competitors had to kill as many as possible to win. It was like trap shooting with live animals. That was the last time live animals were used in an Olympic sporting event, but there will be other shooting events at the Olympics. In this Norwegian sport, a horse, dog, or snowmobile drags a skier on a snowy oval track.
For a demonstration at the winter games in St. Moritz, Switzerland, horses pulled contestants across a frozen lake. The Swiss dominated. While the founding father of the Olympics Pierre de Coubertin thought the sport was particularly cool, it never made another appearance in an Olympics.
The hottest event at the Olympics was a demonstration in which a fire was staged, and competitors had to put it out. Portuguese volunteer firefighters won a gold medal in the amateur contest and Kansas City firefighters won a gold medal in the professional contest. In this event that debuted at the London Olympics, cardboard cutouts of deer moved across a distance of 75 feet in four seconds, and the competitors had either one or two chances to shoot it.
