Posted: 7/8/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: The Associated Press This 1924 photo provided by the French Olympic Committee VIA United States Olympic Committee Photo Archive shows a game of rugby being played at the 1924 Olympics in France. There have been bigger, more mainstream sports dropped from the Olympic docket. Polo was part of five Games, rugby four, golf and lacrosse two each.

If you've been swimming, you probably tried it at least once: dive into the water and see how far you can get without taking a stroke. Coast past 62 feet and you could have earned a gold medal at the 1904 Olympics.

The tug-of-war you played with friends at school? That could have been worth a podium spot at six Games. A gym class favorite like the rope climb and a game that looked like hopscotch - the standing hop, step, jump - also were once medal events.

Long before the corporate sponsorships and billion-dollar television deals, the Olympic Games were more like games kids might play in the backyard. Some of the events may seem a bit strange - club swinging, anyone? - but there was certainly a fun factor to the early days of the Olympics.

"It's was a different thing, kind of catch as catch can, particularly the very early days before it got formalized," said David Wallechinsky, vice president of the International Society of Olympic Historians. "Eventually, as it got bigger, they had to take it a lot more serious."

The first few modern Olympics, which started in Athens in 1896, were loosely organized. There were no national teams - athletes could just sign up, pay an entry fee and compete - and the host countries were allowed to pick what events were to be held.

That changed after World War I, when the International Olympic Committee took over selection of the Olympic program because Sweden wouldn't allow boxing at the 1912 Stockholm Games.

And while there has always been a political slant to the Olympics - St. Louis pulled a back-room deal to snatch the 1904 Games from Chicago - there wasn't much worldwide attention paid to the early Games.

A wild finish in the marathon at the 1908 Games - Italy's Dorando Pietri was disqualified for being helped across the finish line by two officials after collapsing several times - and the Nazi presence at the 1936 Berlin Games helped increase media interest, eventually turning the Olympics into the financial and political monster of today.

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