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Of the 14 pioneering participants,
the winner was a Frenchman who stayed
under for 68.4 seconds while doing 60
meters of laps. The third-place fin-
isher, a Dane, remained submerged
for 30 seconds longer but covered less
distance because he wound up swim-
ming in circles. You could say the same
for the event itself. Itwas never held again.
Underwater swimming is just one of
the many, many new events that have
appeared in the Olympic Games over
the years, as the organizers work to keep
things fresh and a ract more fans. Not
all are destined to fizzle. Women’s box-
ing—which makes its debut in London
this summer—is growing in popularity,
and even has a few marquee names (the
daughters of Ali and Frazier are top-tier
pro fighters).
But Olympic Games history is strewn
withother events that didn’tmake the cut.
Some of the strangest of these appeared
in the early years of the modern Olympic
Games (which began in 1896), when host
countries were allowed to include events
popular within their own borders—and
often
only
within their borders. This
accounted for host countries Greece,
France, the United States, Britain and
Sweden copping most of the gold medals
during the first five Olympic Games.
Take France, for instance. If you get
a bit queasy at the thought of boxing,
you probably wouldn’t have enjoyed live
pigeon shooting, which was part of the
1900Olympic Games inParis. Contestants
fired live ammunitionat pigeons thatwere
released one at a time, like skeet; miss your
first two shots, and you were out. The
first-place finisher, Leon de Lunden
of Belgium, never missed, downing
21 pigeons in a competition that
reportedly horrified many spectators.
(Fortunately, clay targets had replaced
live ones by the 1908 Games.)
Quieter but more nonsensi -
cal was that year’s 200-meter
swimming obstacle race, during
which competitors swam for
25 meters, climbed up and over
a pole, and clambered over and
then swam under a row of boats
before crossing the finish line in
the heavily polluted Seine. “It was
probably tremendously entertaining,”
says Olympic Games historian John
Lucas. “I imagine it was sort of like an
extreme sport for the amusement of
the mob.” Amusing or no, the event
was never held again (which sets it
apart from tug-of-war, which was
included in the Olympic Games
from 1900 until 1920).
culture
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