Excerpt from the book Sports the Olympics Forgot This book describes 40 sports that ought to be played but aren’t, because I made them up.

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The Basque bullfighter Martin Sanchez Llorente won more Papal Bullfight contests (23) than anyone else with his time of 16 seconds in 1862 still a record. Fighters have been gored by the Papal Bull but no-one has been killed.

The next oldest Race is the Greyhound Race that dates from 1621. Here the artificial hare is chased around three laps of the track by greyhounds dressed in monk’s costumes. The hare wears a papal crown and carries a Papal Staff. Again this is a toned down version of the original where a real hare, wearing a mitre, was hunted to death by greyhounds. Nowadays, the winning greyhound and owner receive a kennel for the dog that is modelled on the Pope’s Palace at Avignon. A greyhound called Luther has won the race the most times with 7 wins in the period 1898 – 1905.