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Through the many years of the Olympics, some sports have been deleted as others took their places. Many of these sports, no longer in the Olympics, still hold worldwide popularity today, but for whatever reason, the Olympic committee has chosen to exclude them.

A good example is baseball and women's fast pitch softball, which will no longer be an Olympic event after the Olympics in 2008 at Beijing. These are two very popular sports and will be missed. Perhaps between now and 2012, they will be voted back in. Here are some other popular sports that are no longer in the Olympics.

Golf

One of the most loved, played and enjoyed sports in the world is golf. Once considered a game for only the wealthy, it is now played in communities, which are not very wealthy. The object of the game is to hit your golf ball, with one of several golf clubs, into consecutively numbered holes on a green some distance away. Golf was included in the Summer Olympic Games of 1900 in Paris and 1904 in St. Louis, but was then dropped.

Polo

Polo is a team sport, which requires excellent equestrian skill as it is played on horseback. The aim of the game is to score goals by driving a ball into the other team's goal with a long mallet. It was an event at the 1900 St. Louis Olympics and again at the 1908 London Olympics. It has not been an event since this.

Rugby

Rugby is extremely popular in England as well as other parts of the world. It is commonly referred to as the father of football in the United States. Rugby was introduced as an event in the 1900 Paris Olympics and continued as an event until the 1924 Paris Olympics. There is still a movement to have it reinstated today.

Lacrosse

Another very popular sport is Lacrosse. This is a contact sport played one team against another with a solid rubber ball and lacrosse sticks or rackets. First played in the 1904 St. Louis Olympics, it was again on the program for the 1908 London Games when the Olympic committee voted it out.

Cricket

Cricket has been around for hundreds of years and is said to be one to the most popular sports in the world, second only to soccer. It is played with a bat and a small ball, which is rolled to the batsman. It was played in the Olympics for only one year, in 1900 in Paris.

Tug of War

This popular sport needs no explanation as we have all played it at school in the past. It was an event from the 1900 Paris Olympics until the 1920 Antwerp Olympics when it was voted out.

While these and many others may no longer have a place in the summer Olympics, they are still very popular around the world. They will forever have a place in our lives as we go to exhibitions, watch them on television and become participants as coaches and players.

Sources:
asoif.com
asoif .org

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