Olympics Sports Trivia
This is a sub-section of our trivia pages, all about the Olympic sports trivia.
- The first ever event of the modern Olympic Games was the 1st heat of the 100m, held on 6 April 1896.
- Since the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, as many as ten sports have disappeared completely from the schedule, such as croquet, jeu de paume, pelota, polo, roque, rackets, tug-of-war and motor boating. See all about Discountinued Sports.
- The 1900 Olympic Games included many now discontinued sports and events, including the equestrian long jump. The horse long jump was won by a Belgian rider named Constant van Langhendonck with a leap of approximately 6.10 meters - 1.08m shorter than America's Alvin Kraenzlein managed to win the human long jump version at the same Games.
- There are many sports that were included as demonstration sports at the Olympic Games. Some of the more unusual sports include taxi and delivery van racing and cannon shooting in 1900.
- Pigeon shooting was a demonstration sport on the Paris 1900 program. Fortunately this shooting event was short lived. It was the only time animals were killed on purpose during an Olympic event.
- The first team sport added to the Olympics was Football in 1900.
- The surfing event for the 2024 Olympics will be held 15,000km away from Paris in French Tahiti. It is the record furthest an event is from the host city.
- There are two Olympic events that require an athlete to vault - the vault event in gymnastics and the pole vault in athletics.
- The sport of wresting is the only remaining sport that still requires participants to have amateur status to participate in the Olympic Games (boxing has allowed professionals to compete since the 2016 Rio Games.
- Only one sport was created specifically for the modern Olympic Games, the Modern Pentathlon.
- There are many more water sports at the Olympics than you think. We have created a list of more than 10, can you list them?
- Sitting down to play? There are many Olympic sports that involve sitting, not just sitting volleyball.
- Olympic Sports played on grass. There are many now, but there were many more in the past.
- How many Olympic sports are judged, rather than relying on objective measures such as accuracy, time and distance?
Related Pages
- List of Olympic Sports
- More Olympic Games Trivia
- Oldest competitors per sport
- Youngest competitors per sport
- Discontinued Olympic Sports
- Olympic Records
- Olympic Games Quiz Night questions
- Tokyo Olympics Fun Facts
- More Sports Trivia
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