"Former Olympic sports come right from playground"

John Marshall over at the Associated Press posted this article the other day about how former Olympic sports (that are no longer part of the Games) sort of seem downright odd compared to the Olympic sports that we know and love today.

Some former Olympics sports that you won’t see in Beijing this summer

Dueling Pistols (1906 Athens Summer Olympics) - “the participants didn’t actually shoot each other; they fired upon mannequins dressed in frock coats with bull-eyes on their chests.”

Diving Plunge (1904) -“Dive into the water and see how far you can get without taking a stroke….swimmers earned points based on how long they could hold their breath and how far they could get before coming up for air.”

Live Pigeon Shooting (1900 Paris Games) - “Nearly 300 birds were killed during the release-and-shoot competition, leaving a mess of feathers and blood after an event that clearly wouldn’t fly today.”

There are a few other sports mentioned, but the one that caught my eye was, you guessed it:

Solo Synchronized Swimming (1984 & 1992) - “The idea was for the swimmer to synchronize with the music, but viewers couldn’t get past the whole lack of a partner thing.”

Just for the record, there are still solo synchro competitions that take place all across the world, but it’s just not an Olympic sport anymore.