Contrary to Incarnadine's writeup, a number of sports have already been dropped by the Olympics over the years. We no longer get:
which have all featured in the (sometimes distant) past. Other sports have seen some rationalization of disciplines; cycling, for instance, has lost the tandem track event and the 100 km team time trial since 1992, with the kilometre time trial out for 2008 (whilst adding mountain biking, new women's track events and BMX), while all manner of odd athletics events were held in the early years. In many cases qualifying requirements have been set and raised to keep the number of entrants, and thus the length of multi-round competitions, down; the IOC doesn't really hold with the idea that "it is the taking part that counts", and is not particularly enthusiastic to see more Eddie the Eagles or Jamaican bobsledders.
The increased number of participating countries following the collapse of the USSR and the addition of new sports has more or less stretched the Olympics - the Summer Games, at least - as far as it can go in terms of host cities being able to cope with the numbers of athletes, attendants and officials and minimised the chance that it can be held in any but the richest nations, so it is certainly likely that some of the current events will be dropped as others are introduced. Everybody will have their personal favourites (you will always get plenty of purist support for the idea of removing, or possibly banning completely, the subjectively-judged sports - although TV money certainly says otherwise), and the varying geographical distribution of different sports is also significant (the IOC generally considers that a sport to be considered for addition to the summer Olympics should be practised in at least fifty countries, although baseball got added all the same). However one other criterion might be worth considering: the removal of the sports or events where an Olympic gold medal is not the highest possible achievement, as it is in most of the sports involved. To my mind this would mean getting rid of the following, all sports with no shortage of TV coverage on their own account, at least in the areas where they are most popular, in favour of the canoeists, pistol shooters and rowers: