Four Strange Winter Olympic Sports That Didn’t Make the Cut

By Grant Law Office on February 17, 2014

Despite some strange muck ups with its infrastructure, such as plumbing and, well, living facilities in general, the Sochi Winter Olympics is going strong, and people the world over are enjoying their favorite winter sports. There are the popular classics like skiing, hockey, sled racing, and figure skating. There are also relatively young thrillers like snowboarding. Whether you’re excited to see superhuman feats of speed, strength, finesse, or just plain craziness, you’re bound to find something you love.

The Winter Olympics hasn’t always been this way. Throughout its history, various sports have come and gone. Some of them were sensible sports that just didn’t catch on while others were plain crazy. Here are the five most notable former events in the Olympics history books.

Bandy

Bandy preceded hockey and is very similar to it, the only differences being that bandy is played on a rink the size of a soccer field and is played with a ball instead of a puck. In other words, bandy involves a lot more skating, a lot less compact moments of chaos, and perhaps, a lot less excitement. Bandy was included in the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo as a demonstration sport. Only three teams participated, Sweden won, hardly anyone gave a hoot, and that was the last hurrah of bandy in the Winter Olympics.

Skijoring

Skijoring involves skiing while towed by either a powerful and fast dog or horse. The primary goal is speed and speed alone. Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of this extreme sport is that it is very much alive today. Skijoring made its first and only appearance in the 1928 Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Participants used horses and the course was located on a frozen lake without jumps. Did I forget to mention that some skijoring courses have jumps?

Sled Dog Racing

Now here’s a sport that you can get a grasp on. Known more for the Iditarod and its thousand-mile course, sled dog racing was a much less epic event in its only Winter Olympic appearance at Lake Placid in 1932. There were two races on a course that was only 25.1 miles in length. Each race took no more than three-and-a-half hours. Only the US and Canada participated.

Ice Stock Sport

This sport, much like its original name (Eisstockschießen), appears to be a bunch of nonsense. If you are one of the few who understand curling, then ice stock sport may make sense to you. But to the majority of the today’s Games viewing audience, ice stock sport would just look like people sliding discs with silly hats across ice with no rhyme or reason. The International Olympic Committee incorporated the strange event into two Olympic Games, once in 1936 and another time in 1964. The sport failed to captivate audiences in both of its Games appearances. Wonder why?

The Atlanta personal injury lawyers at The Law Offices of Wayne Grant, P.C. wish all Winter Olympics viewers, whether hardcore or casual, to have a great time with the Games!