7 Canceled or Reintroduced Olympic Sports

Until 2016, golf had been featured in the Olympics only twice: in the 1900 and 1904 Games. The 1900 Paris Olympics featured a men’s and a women’s event. In 1904 in St. Louis, Missouri, a team golfing event supplanted the women’s event. After a 112-year hiatus, the sport returned to the Games for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Nominally the creepiest of Olympic sports, skeleton sledding was reintroduced to the Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2002. Its preceding appearance was in 1948, and before then it had appeared in the 1928 Olympics. Why these odd years? Well, both of these Olympics were held in St. Moritz, Switzerland, where the bob run called Cresta Run, well known among skeleton enthusiasts, was built in 1884. Since skeleton sledding was essentially limited to Cresta Run in the public eye, it was dismissed from the Olympics until artificial bob runs could be made and the sport had the chance to increase in popularity. It soon did, since there are plenty of thrill seekers who love launching headfirst down curvy ice trails, sliding as fast as 93 miles (150 km) per hour and steering with only the slightest movements in their shoulders and knees.

Rugby has been a premier sport in Europe for some time, although it didn’t have international staying power during the 20th century. Rugby union, played with 15 players per side for an 80-minute match, was an official Olympic sport for some of the earliest modern Olympics (1900, 1908, 1920, and 1924). This was thanks to Pierre, baron de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, who just happened to be an avid rugby fan. When he left the IOC, rugby dropped off the Olympic stage and remained dormant until the IOC voted to reinstate a version of the game—rugby sevens—into the Summer Olympics, beginning with the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. The IOC agreed on sevens rather than union (15s) because of the dynamic and fast-paced nature of the sport. Seven players must cover the field space that 15 players cover in union, and each half is only seven minutes long. The increased popularity of the sport internationally is what led to the IOC’s overwhelming support of reintroducing rugby to the Olympics: the sport saw a 2.6-million-player increase between 2011 and 2016, bringing the international player count to 7.2 million across 120 countries.

This favorite childhood pastime and field-day activity was an Olympic event from 1900 to 1920. Part of the track-and-field program, tug-of-war consisted of five-person teams vying for a victory of strength. Sweden, Great Britain, and combined country teams claimed the most wins over these years. Notably, an American team representing the Milwaukee Athletic Club stole the gold in 1904, and a British team from the City of London Police Club won in 1908. Unfortunately, the game was discontinued after the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium.

Baseball flirted with the Olympics throughout the 20th century, often being showcased as a demonstration event at the Summer Games. Finally, baseball was added as an official Olympic sport in 1992, with its sister sport softball joining in four years later. In 2012, however, both baseball and softball were dropped from the Olympic ticket, the first time since 1936 that the IOC shrank the number of sports. Professional baseball players had been allowed to compete in the Olympics but often wouldn’t, since the Olympics overlap with the Major League Baseball (MLB) season. The IOC cited the MLB’s unwillingness to alter its season as a significant factor for dropping both sports. However, the snub didn’t last for long. It was announced in 2016 that baseball and softball would both return to Olympic sport status for the 2020 Tokyo Games (which were held in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic). The two sports were then dropped from the 2024 Games in Paris but reinstated for the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

Curling can be considered the ice version of lawn bowls, and, trust us, it’s just as odd. Each team consists of four players alternating sliding 44-pound (20-kg) stones across ice to a target (the tee) about 130 feet (40 meters) away. As the stone is traveling, two players vigorously brush the ice ahead of the stone’s path. This warms the ice, creating a layer of water that slows the deceleration of the stone. While the sport sounds obscure, it’s been around for a while, dating back to Scotland in the early 16th century. Curling was introduced in the first Winter Olympic Games in 1924 at Chamonix, France, and then appeared as a demonstration sport in 1988 and 1992. It achieved medal status at the 1998 Nagano, Japan, Games, and an additional event—mixed doubles—joined the men’s and women’s events in 2018.

Synchronized swimming was a latecomer to the Olympics, debuting as an Olympic sport in the 1984 Los Angeles Games. The sport had two main events: duet synchronized swimming and solo synchronized swimming. That’s right: solo synchronized swimming. It kind of seems like an oxymoron, but apparently the synchronization was supposed to be with the music rather than another swimmer. Both events were featured again in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, but they were replaced by a team synchronized swimming event in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The duet was reinstated for the Olympics in 2000, but the solo event never resurfaced.