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LIST OF DISCONTINUED OLYMPIC SPORTS
- Tug of War (1900-1920)
- Polo (1900, 1908, 1920, 1924, 1936)
- Croquet (1900)
- Motor Boating (1908)
- Jeu de Paume (1908)
- Rackets (1908)
- Roque (1904)
- Basque Pelota (1900)
- Cricket (1900)
- Lacrosse (1904, 1908)
Note: Some sports like cricket and lacrosse are set to return at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, while others like golf and rugby have already made comebacks in recent years.
TUG OF WAR
Discontinued: 1920
Picture eight burly athletes gripping a rope, muscles straining in perfect unison. This wasn’t your childhood playground game—it was serious Olympic business. Teams battled to drag opponents six feet across a line in five minutes. British police dominated with their enormous shoes, sparking legendary controversies that rocked the Games.
POLO
Discontinued: 1936
Thundering hooves, flying mallets, and aristocratic drama. Four riders per Polo team chased a small ball across vast fields, scoring goals with long-handled mallets. Argentina’s golden era peaked before 45,000 spectators in 1936 Berlin. The sport’s expensive horses and elite appeal ultimately discontinued the Olympic game.
CROQUET
Discontinued: 1900
France’s garden party turned into an Olympic spectacle. Players wielded mallets to navigate balls through wicket sequences on manicured lawns. Some of the earliest female Olympians competed here. The sport came out of the same Victorian leisure craze that produced board games nobody prints anymore. Only one spectator bought a ticket—an Englishman who traveled from Nice just to watch.
MOTOR BOATING
Discontinued: 1908
Roaring engines and crashing waves in Olympic competition. Motorboats raced 40 nautical miles through brutal gales. Only one boat finished each event due to treacherous weather. The IOC quickly realized machines had no place in human athletic competition, ending this brief mechanical Olympic chapter.
JEU DE PAUME
Discontinued: 1908
This indoor predecessor to tennis featured asymmetrical courts with playable walls. Originally played barehanded, rackets came later. American railroad heir Jay Gould II claimed the only Olympic gold. The sport’s courts later hosted the famous French Revolution Tennis Court Oath.
RACKETS
Discontinued: 1908
Lightning-fast indoor combat with harder balls than squash. This upper-class British sport demanded exceptional reflexes on large courts. All seven Olympic competitors were British. Basically, a posh domestic tournament. The gold medalist won by walkover when his opponent injured his hand.
ROQUE
Discontinued: 1904
America’s “scientific” answer to croquet. Played on hard courts with boundary walls for banking shots like billiards. Enthusiasts called it “the Game of the Century.” The name cleverly dropped croquet’s “c” and “t.” Despite grand ambitions, it vanished from American life about as completely as the twenty-cent piece and the other coins the Mint gave up on.
BASQUE PELOTA
Discontinued: 1900
The world’s fastest sport met Olympic disappointment. Players hurled balls against walls at deadly speeds using hands, rackets, or wooden bats. The entire competition lasted zero minutes. France withdrew over rule disputes, handing Spain gold by default. It became history’s shortest Olympic event.
CRICKET
Discontinued: 1900
Two days of gentlemanly competition. Britain defeated France by 158 runs in the sport’s only Olympic appearance. Pierre de Coubertin dismissed it as having “no appeal for non-British” audiences. The sport returns in 2028 after a 128-year Olympic absence—now in explosive T20 format. Few things that get officially discontinued ever return that completely.
LACROSSE
Discontinued: 1908
Native American origins meet Olympic glory. Players wielded netted sticks to catch, carry, and fling rubber balls toward goals. Canada dominated completely, winning both golds plus bronze. Every competing team earned medals due to tiny fields. This indigenous sport also returns to Los Angeles in 2028.
