The Olympic Games are the world’s oldest and most prestigious competitions, so they have attracted respect and admiration all over the world.

But there were moments in the history of these games when they included strange, unexpected, funny or even intriguing competitions, so unusual for today’s sport enthusiasts.

Here is a selection of these weird competitions at the Olympics:

1. Solo Synchronized Swimming: Unsurprisingly, this seemingly contradictory sport earned little respect when it made its initial splash at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. Despite the absurdity of staying in sync with oneself – though the event’s supporters claim that the synchronization is with the music — the event reappeared at the Seoul Games four years later and again at Barcelona in 1992.
2. Obstacle Swimming:For the first and last time at the 1900 Olympics, the swimming competition in Sena (a river known as very muddy) was included in the Olympics. Competitors had to go through a 200-meter-long race full of obstacles. In addition, because the 1900 Games coincided with the Paris World Fair, they became almost a circus, including competitions such as live pigeon shooting, pigeon racing, kite lifting and gunning.
3. Art and literature: Until 1952, the Olympics included contests such as poetry (writing odes and poems), music, painting, sculpture and architecture.
4. Dueling pistols: Pistol dueling made an appearance at the Olympics, during the unofficial 1906 Intercalated Games held in Athens. Confusingly, the event consisted of no actual dueling as individuals merely shot at plaster dummies dressed in frock coats from a distance of 20 or 30 meters.
5. Skijoring:In 1928, at the Olympics in St. Moritz, this competition was created – all competitors were drawn by horses or dogs, while skiing. They could do acrobatics on the road or simply compete at speed.

In the end, we can only be glad that today’s games have a satisfactory degree of normality and decency.

Good luck on your competitions!

Victory Hangers Team

*(Source: Olympics.time.com)