Plunge diving, musical walking lie on scrap heap

Sydney: Triathlon, women's weightlifting and taekwondo will all be medal events for the first time at the Sydney Olympics that open on Friday.

So whatever happened to plunge diving?

At the 1904 Games in St Louis, contestants in the unusual event had to dive into the pool and remain motionless for one minute or until their heads broke the surface of the water, whichever came first.

The divers resurfaced but the discipline didn't -- one of a slew of discarded events and sports that litter the annals of Olympic history.

Paris in 1900 had the swimming obstacle race and the equestrian long jump.Cricket, a sport so loved by Australians today, also featured at the 1900 Olympics.

Britain won by 158 runs against France, though the latter team consisted of players from the British embassy in Paris.

Tug of War, in which competing teams of rope-heavers try to pull each other six feet (about two metres), stayed around for six Olympics between 1900 and 1920.

Motor boating, lacrosse and polo have all come and gone.

The first women ever to compete in a modern Olympics were three French ladies who engaged in the genteel sport of croquet at the Paris Games.

The tournament drew one paying spectator and that was it for croquet and the Olympic rings. Golf, an Olympic sport in 1900 and 1904, was sunk in 1908 when British participants boycotted the event at the London Games.

The only other entrant, defending champion George Lyon of Canada, refused to accept the gold medal by default. The standing high jump and the shot put with both hands faded away after the 1912 Stockholm Games, by when freestyle javelin had already been dropped.

That was because all the best throwers held the object in exactly the same position as in the regular javelin event anyway.

Then there was walking to music.

It was never an official event but the last man to win the 3,000 metre walk, Ugo Frigerio of Italy, strode to victory in Antwerp in 1920 after getting the band in the stadium to play sheet music he gave the musicians before the start of the race.



(c) Reuters Limited.