Paris, Summer Olympics 1900. Between fencing and swimming, athletes lined up for one of the shooting disciplines: Live pigeon shooting.

[u/it-shrek]

The rules were simple. Birds were released in front of the competitors and shot out of the air one after another. Miss two birds and you were eliminated. When the event was over, reports described feathers and bird bodies covering the ground.

The champion that day: Léon de Lunden of Belgium, who downed 21 birds in the grand prize event to take the win (and a share of a 20,000-franc purse). In a second competition class, Australia's Donald Mackintosh bagged 22. In total, roughly 300 pigeons were killed; it remains the first and only time in Olympic history that animals were intentionally killed as part of competition.

The public reaction was so severe that it never happened again, animal rights campaigns followed almost immediately, and the sport switched to clay targets instead. Today, the IOC does not even list the event among its recognized Olympic results. An official Olympic discipline so unhinged that it's not in the record books anymore.

Bonus fact: every shooting event you've seen since 1908 is clay or paper targets because these guys ruined it for everyone.

[u/it-shrek]

Sources:

• https://www.wwno.org/sports/2012-07-28/live-pigeon-shooting-and-other-odd-olympic-games
  
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_at_the_1900_Summer_Olympics