30 greatest one-time sports in Summer Olympics history

23. Pigeon Racing
1900 Paris Olympics

Back to the well that is the 1900 Paris Olympics, and this one is wild. On the scorecard, this is called an "unofficial sport," but how could we have a list of obscure Olympic sports and not add pigeon racing? Where's Mike Tyson when you need him?

The sport is literally just training pigeons to fly quickly. The “athletes” just release the pigeons at a start line and hope the bird gets to its “home,” which is the finish line. The Birding Homer is the breed of pigeon used for these events, including at the Olympics. The Olympic event had a few rules, including a minimum pigeon count of 100. You read that right. To qualify for the event, there needed to be 100 pigeons released. They also required the event to happen within 80 km of Paris, and it was incredibly popular. In all, more than 7,700 pigeons were released in hopes of winning the ultimate prize.

Unfortunately, pigeon racing did not find its popularity despite the ridiculous count of pigeons involved in the race. Seriously, they had more than 7,000 pigeons and they didn’t want to bring this back? We’re sure there were many other issues involved. Obviously, disease was a huge problem in the early 20th century. Inviting thousands of pigeons in a competition likely didn't lead to positive results.

It’s also ironic that pigeon shooting was also a competition at the 1900 Summer Olympics. However, neither made it past 1900. Pigeons only had their time to shine for one year, although they are pretty happy this event is over.