In another timeline, in July, 1900, an attempt was made to create a US Collegiate Athletics Track and Field event that would become the greatest US sports event ever.
A famous US multi-millionnaire endowed the event, which would be held biennially, in even-numbered years. Despite his hopes, only 1900 and 1902 could be described as successes, with the 1904 event folded into the St Louis Olympics, triggering a desire to attend the 1906 Intercalated Olympics in Athens and the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. The death of the sponsor, [xxxx] (a colossally successful businessman who did not have an analogue in OTL) in 1903 probably contributed to this.
A large group of collegiate athletes who had been intending to compete in the Paris Olympics therefore did not go.
Separately, the IOC decided that the golf tournament at the Paris Olympics, being heavily disorganised and consisting of competitors from only four countries, would be regarded as an unofficial sport. This did not cause controversy as most competitors were indeed unaware that the event in which they competed was supposed to be part of the Olympics in the first place [In OTL, the women's champion never did know she was an Olympic gold-medallist for this very reason; it took many years to track her down to tell her in which time she had sadly passed on].
The 1900 Paris Games remains the worst result for the USA other than the boycotted Moscow Olympics. With one solitary gold medal in rowing and three bronze medals (in tennis, sailing and cycling), and a position on the medals table of 14th, it remains the only time that the US has finished below India, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, and, embarassingly, Cuba. Their sole relief was that they finished one place above Canada.