Croquet has only ever appeared at the Olympics once — Paris, 1900. What happened there was so strange that the sport was never invited back.

One Spectator

The croquet events ran from June 28 to July 22, spread across four weeks during the chaotic Exposition Universelle. According to Guinness World Records, only one paying spectator attended: an elderly English gentleman who had travelled all the way from Nice to watch the early matches.

He remains, to this day, the most devoted croquet fan in Olympic history.

The First Women Olympians

Croquet holds a distinction that most people don't know: it was the first Olympic sport to include women competitors.

Three French women took the court — Jeanne Filleul-Brohy, Marie Ohier, and Mme. Després. They competed against the men in the same events, which was remarkable for 1900.

All three were eliminated in the first round.

But they were there. And that mattered.

Nobody Knew It Was the Olympics

Here's the strangest part: many athletes at the 1900 Paris Olympics didn't know they were competing in the Olympics. The Games weren't labelled consistently, and some sports received official Olympic status so late that participants never realised they'd won Olympic medals.

The croquet players may have been among the oblivious.

Why It Never Returned

An official Olympic report delivered the verdict: croquet had "hardly any pretensions to athleticism."

All ten competitors were French. France won every medal. There wasn't much international drama to showcase.

The sport was dropped, and it never came back.

But here's the thing: croquet didn't need the Olympics. It had already conquered Victorian England, scandalised Boston, and inspired Lewis Carroll to write the most chaotic scene in children's literature.

The game you're learning this week has a history far stranger than its tidy lawns suggest.