By Mike Rowbottom

mikepoloneckAs wrestling, singled out for potential exclusion in 2020 by the International Olympic Committee, seeks to retain its grip on the Games of which it has been a part since the ancient days, speculation is now rising within Olympic circles – or should we say rings? – over which newcomer might manage to capitalise on the chance of joining the biggest sporting show on earth when it is hosted  by Istanbul, Tokyo or Madrid.

Will karate get the gig? Tokyo would certainly be delighted at that turn of events if it was successful in its Games bid. Or will squash, now ticking more boxes than a market researcher, manage to court success at the third time of asking?


At least we can safely say that darts will not be aiming at an Olympic target in 2020, despite a flurry of speculation after this year's PDC World Championships which was partly prompted by an admiring tweet from the former British Olympic Association Director of Elite Sport, Clive Woodward – "Darts definitely an Olympic sport..."

Any aspiring Olympic sport must first become recognised by the IOC before aspiring to join the programme. Darts is not even on the board yet, never mind in a position to hit the bullseye of selection for a future Games.

Sheep-shearing, also touted for future Olympic inclusion this year – perhaps by someone who was half cut – is similarly unable to make the cut. And bridge, which also felt it had a potentially winning Olympic hand a few years ago, has not announced any recent bids.

guilhermewrestleTwo young wrestlers in action at this year's Australian Youth Olympic Festival. Will they have the target of competing at the 2020 Olympic Games?

Is it too late, I wonder  – or is it perhaps too early? – to suggest dog walking as an Olympic sport? In terms of athleticism, for instance, it beats darts. A decent trot around Hatfield Forest with your hound, for instance, involves more mileage than repeat journeys between board and oche and frequently mimics the challenges presented to participants in that now discontinued Olympic sport, the tug-of-war.

Skill and judgement are also involved. Will that approaching husky prove to be a threat? Will that yapping chihuahua turn snappy? Will the one remaining doggy bag in your pocket prove sufficient? In a way, London 2012 missed a trick here. I grant you it was elevating for home supporters to watch the likes of Bradley Wiggins, Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah earn gold during last summer's home Games. But think how happy they might have been to have seen an Englishman and his dog atop the podium...

deauvilletrainingA lady and her dog at Deauville in France, training for a future Olympics. Not really....

While dog-walking has yet to make its spectacular entrance to Baron De Coubertin's visionary Games, however, other sports are panting to get in. How might wakeboarding fare if it gets lucky? Looking at YouTube footage, it seems to be curiously like another of the 2020 contenders, wushu (Chinese martial arts as featured in films from The Way of The Dragon to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) in that it involves an eye-watering amount of spinning around.

Let's put it this way. If Bruce Lee had taken up water sports, he would have been a wakeboarder. Although he would have had to fight against his natural instinct to kick a hole in the boat towing him through the water.

bruceleeIf Bruce Lee had followed the path of water sports, rather than kung fu, he would have been a wakeboarder

There is, of course, a tide in the affairs of new Olympic sports which, if taken at the flood, leads on to fortune...

My sharpest memories of the 1998 Nagano Winter Games, for instance, are of two sports which made their Olympic debut in that year – namely snowboarding and curling. The former sport, ticking the box marked "Young People" as far as the IOC mandarins were concerned, produced the spectacular if rather unfortunate turn of events which saw the winner, Canada's Ross Rebagliati, stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for cannabis, only to have it belatedly restored – after spending 11 hours answering questions in a Japanese police station - because, essentially, the world skiing body and the IOC had not harmonised their doping regulations with regard to a substance which was deemed advantageous for, say, ski jumpers, but actually disadvantageous for technical events such as...snowboarding. Rebagliati thus narrowly missed the unhappy distinction of becoming the first Olympic champion to be disqualified for taking a performance-inhibiting substance.

philthepowerPhil '"The Power'"Taylor, winner of yet another world darts title this year, will not be making an Olympic appearance any time soon

While snowboarding whooshed up in a hurry to its Olympic status, curling proceeded at a steady pace towards its goal, having been included in the Games either as an exhibition or a demonstration sport on six occasions - the first of which was in 1924 and the last in 1992 - before arriving "in-house."

The first women's Olympic curling title went to the Canadians, skipped by the woman who had already amassed three world titles, Sandra Schmirler. After overcoming a shock defeat by Norway, the Canadian team edged past a British quartet skipped by Kirsty Hay in the semi-final thanks to a final delivery which inched inside the British stone and then beat Denmark in the final. Having earned the ultimate reward the sport could offer, Schmirler, who had given birth for the first time in the year before the Games, returned to her native country in triumph - and very sadly died of cancer just over a year later.

rossgoldRoss Rebagliati celebrates winning gold in the first ever Olympic snowboard giant slalom at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games. What's that smell?

The inaugural tug-of-war, at the 1900 Paris Games, produced what to this observer was one of the great results of the Olympics. Who in the press box has never daydreamed themselves to the front of an Olympic race? For Edgar Aaybe, a Danish journalist covering the Paris Games, such a daydream became reality when he was roped in - as it were - to the joint Swedish and Danish team which was victorious in a final lacking the United States, for whom three of their six-man team were required elsewhere for the hammer competition.

The introduction of the synchronised swimming women's team event at the 1996 Atlanta Games has to fall into the category of "Successful", albeit that the competition itself was predictable, with the eight teams finishing in the same order as they had at the World Championships two years earlier, with the United States on top.

What made this event something to be thankful for, however, was something with it did not contain – that is, the originally planned free routine of the French team, which was to portray the arrival of Jewish women at a Nazi concentration camp, their selection for execution and their final walk. Less than two months before the Games got underway Guy Drut, France's Minister of Youth and Sport, vetoed the idea. For which the 1976 Olympic 110 metres hurdles champion deserved another gold medal...

But if these debutant Olympic sports have had happy outcomes, what of those whose experience of the Games has been at the other end of the contentometer? Who wins the medal for worst newcomer?

In a sense, one could argue that the women's 800m fell into this category. When this race became part of the Olympic programme at the 1928 Games in Amsterdam, several of the women finalists dropped to the ground after the race and had to be helped to recover. This was used by some in the media and the International Amateur Athletic Federation to argue against the idea of women racing any distances further than 200m at the Games.

One British newspaper backed up this point of view by quoting a doctor as saying that women who took part in 800m races and other such "feats of endurance" would "become old too soon." (It was the Daily Mail, actually. Plus ca change.)

Ludicrous as it may appear now, the IAAF did indeed ban races of more than 200m for women at the Olympics, and that ban stood for 32 years until the perilous enterprise was resumed at the 1960 Rome Games. Such excessive care appears even more ludicrous given the introduction of the women's marathon to the Olympics in 1984, when US runner Joan Benoit managed to win the race in a time of 2 hours 2min 52sec without falling over at the end. She did, however, admit to a wobbly moment as she approached the end of the race: "When I came into the stadium and saw all the colours and everything, I told myself 'Listen, just look straight ahead, because if you don't you're probably going to faint..."

More seriously, there was a subsequent appearance in the race which would have had the old Daily Mail doctor saying "Told you so" as Gabriele Andersen-Schiess barely managed to stagger round the final 400 metres because she was suffering from heat prostration. However, unlike Dorando Pietri in the heart-wringing finale to the 1908 Olympic marathon, she managed to wave away her would-be helpers and was able to stagger round in an excruciating time of five minutes and four seconds before falling across the line into the arms of medical staff.

This time there was a more enlightened ruling from the IAAF, which soon passed what became known as the "Schiess rule", whereby athletes are allowed to receive a hands-on medical examination without being automatically disqualified.

What the good doctor would have made of the 2003 running of the London Marathon, where Paula Radcliffe's time of 2:15:25 was not only a world record but also the fastest time recorded on the day by any British male competitor, one can only guess.

joanbenoitJoan Benoit celebrates winning the first women's Olympic marathon title on home soil at the 1984 Los Angeles Games

The first staging of the sabre contest in men's fencing at the 1896 Athens Games went exactly according to plan, at least as far as the competitors were concerned. It was the introduction of a monarch which threw things awry. The arrival of King George at the venue, at a point where the competition had almost finished, threw the organisers into consternation. They came up with the novel idea of starting the whole thing again, the better to entertain their visiting King.

This decision impacted rather seriously on Adolf Schmal of Austria, who by that point had already beaten his Greek opponent, Ioannis Georgiadis, and Denmark's Holger Nielsen. Unfortunately for the Austrian he lost to both second time around, and ended up one place off the podium as Georgiadis took gold and Nielsen bronze. Still, at least it offered King George a diverting spectacle...

Then again, how about cricket? Introduced at the 1900 Paris Games, and immediately unintroduced after its Olympic debut, it prompted a French magazine to observe: "Cricket is... a sport which appears monotonous and without colour to the uninitiated..."

The introduction of another sport at the same Paris Games - namely croquet - was hardly more auspicious, and it too was immediately discontinued. "This game," observed the Official Games Report, "French in name and origin...has hardly any pretensions to athleticism..."

Which brings us back to darts...

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.