30 greatest one-time sports in Summer Olympics history

26. Plunging
1904 St. Louis Olympics

It’s never good when sports writers criticize Olympic athletes for being too out of shape to keep the sport as part of the Games, but that’s what happened with plunging. It sounds like an early version of diving but without the grace or athleticism. It was a dive forward instead of a dive down. It also had weird rules, like that athletes' distances weren’t measured until a minute after the dive.

Imagine watching someone dive in the water and then just coast for a full minute without the ability to move their arms or legs. It sounds like someone should go save that person.

Plunging is like many Olympic sports; it’s added way after the sport's true peak popularity. Plunging, or plunging for distance, was really popular in the late 19th century. By the time 1904 hit, the fad had faded away. Yet, the IOC was trying to make this popular again. It didn’t work. 

There were five total competitors in the event, all Americans, and William Paul Dickey took home the gold medal with a plunge of more than 62 feet. When the London Games took place in 1908, plunging wasn’t really considered. There was a worry it didn’t show athletics, and we tend to agree.