Bizarre Olympic sports that aren’t Olympic anymore

The Olympic Games is the highest level of sporting competition, with the best athletes in the world competing for the most storied prize of all, the Olympic Gold.

However, since 1900, the Olympics have showcased some of the strangest 'sports' in which you wouldn't believe athletes have competed for their country in them. Here they are!

At the 1900 Games in Paris, hot air ballooning had its only year in the Olympics, with people competing to go the highest in the balloon and who could go the furthest. The gold medal winners reached a height of 8,558 meters, and someone flew from Paris to Kyiv in Ukraine.

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The sport doesn't even make sense. How can you synchronize your swimming if you're the only person competing? Still, the 1984, 1988, and 1992 Olympics all had solo synchronized swimming, and Tracie Ruiz, Carolyn Waldo, Kristen Babb-Sprague, and Sylvie Frechette won the golds.

According to GQ Sports, competitors had to plunge underwater at the 1904 Olympics in St Louis and see how far down they could go before resurfacing up to a maximum of a minute later. The winner was William D i c k e y, who reached a distance of 62.5 feet.

Shooting sports have been a symbol of the Olympic Games since it started, but none get stranger than shooting live pigeons out of the air, like they did in Paris in 1900. More than 300 pigeons were downed, with the winner hitting 21.

Sports fishing is still a popular sport, and according to the NOS Jeugdjournaal website, it was an Olympic sport at the Paris Games in 1900, with over 600 contestants catching more than 2000 fish. The person who caught the biggest fish was Elie Lesueur.

It isn't quite as crazy as it sounds because the contestants weren't shooting at each other, but at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, men took part in shooting at mannequins dressed in frock coats.

Equestrian has always been a big part of the Olympics, but horse long jump and high jump is strange. They might as well have horse pole vaulting if those two were allowed. These events are exactly what they sound like, and they happened at the 1900 Olympics in Paris.

An Olympic version of Total Wipeout? Yes, please. Also, at the 1900 Games, athletes competed in an obstacle course that required climbing up poles and swimming under boats on the river Seine. The winner was Australian Fred Lane. This one needs a comeback.

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