30 greatest one-time sports in Summer Olympics history

15. Gymnastics Triathlon
1904 St. Louis Olympics

It’s officially listed on the program as a triathlon, but nobody would understand what that means without being pretty upfront that this is about gymnastics. Unlike a normal triathlon, which involves running, biking, and swimming, the gymnastics triathlon involves three major events but doesn’t really involve endurance at all.

The men’s triathlon at the St. Louis Olympics involved the horizontal bar, parallel bars, and horse. It’s basically the all-around with two fewer events. We can see why this was eliminated the very next year. Despite having a pretty high turnout (190 gymnasts competed), most of those athletes could just move their expertise to either a single event or to the all-around.

There is one very strange fact about the gymnastics triathlon: the scores were used for the men’s all-around, but they were combined with the athletics triathlon. This was a fact that truly caused our jaw to drop (and forced us to double and triple-check those facts). So yes, for some reason, to name a men’s gymnastics all-around winner, judges calculated the scores of the gymnastics triathlon and the athletics triathlon. So, one had to be as good at running a 100-yard dash as they were at doing a triple flip off the parallel bars.

Again, it’s pretty clear why this event didn’t last. There was an unnecessary connection, and the gymnastics program needed revamping for it to work at future Olympics.