30 greatest one-time sports in Summer Olympics history
By Nick Villano
19. Canon Shooting
1900 Paris Olympics
Back to the Wild West that was the 1900 Olympics in Paris. We told you there were a ton of strange events there. None might be as strange as “canon shooting.” There were a lot of war themes in those earlier Olympic Games, but this one might take the cake.
How does one score a shot out of a canon? We’re not talking about Gonzo getting shot out of a canon like this is the circus on Sesame Street; that would be easy to assess. No, canon shooting couldn’t just be one event. Instead, it needed 17 events. Just for reference, artistic gymnastics only has 14 events at the Paris Olympics.
The types of events and the reason for the sheer volume of events is not clear. There isn’t much of a record for this event going back that far. There were only French competitors, and the assumption is most of the events dealt with length and accuracy.
To top things off, the closing ceremonies of the 1900 Olympics included a human cannonball. It clearly meant a lot at these Games, but something didn’t land with the judges, and they didn’t bring it back for future Games. Canon shooting can remain a mystery.