Dear Pentathletes: Enjoy Your Last Ride. Get Ready for the Obstacle Course.

[Pelican Press 0]

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Dear Pentathletes: Enjoy Your Last Ride. Get Ready for the Obstacle Course.

The farrago of a sport that is the modern pentathlon owes its rarefied existence to Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympics, who, according to legend, imagined it as a test of mettle for a typical French cavalry officer. Caught behind ****** lines, such a man might have to fence with and ****** at his pursuers; run toward safety; swim across a body of water; and ride away on a random horse he happened to encounter.

But many things that made sense in the 19th century seem less persuasive in the 21st. So, drifting toward obsolescence and facing eviction from the Olympics after an

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in the Tokyo Games, modern pentathlon’s governing body voted in 2021 to overhaul itself for the contemporary era.

While the pentathletes at the Paris Games are indeed riding horses over a series of jumps as part of the event, they will face an entirely different fifth discipline when they get to Los Angeles in 2028: a race the organizers are calling a “‘Ninja Warrior’-style obstacle course.”

Officials said that this bracing change to a niche sport that wafts vaguely into public consciousness every four years, only to waft out again, was a matter of urgency.

“We had to reduce its cost and improve its accessibility, ” Klaus Schormann, the president of modern pentathlon’s governing body, known as the U.I.P.M., said. Shiny Fang, the group’s secretary general, called the updated lineup “perfect for the TV audience.”

Many pentathletes say that the change is worthwhile because it means they’ll get to stay in the Games — virtually the only event in their calendar that registers with the wider world. And Jamie Cooke, a former champion for Britain who is now the Swiss coach, said that the new discipline was proving popular with young athletes. “They come in with a big smile on their face because they know it’s going to be fun,” he said in a news conference.

As ******** as the change might be, it could have been even more extreme. When the U.I.P.M. solicited proposals for a new fifth sport from national committees and athletes, more than 60 suggestions poured in. A sampling: drone sports and “electric go-kart” from the Hungarians; castle climbing from the South Koreans; dog obedience, “****** horses” and “motor car racing on video games” from New Zealand; pommel horse and paintball from Canada; and, from an athletes’ focus group that was perhaps registering its disapproval of the exercise, roller skating and something called “traditional Gambian pillow fighting.”

As relieved as the athletes undoubtedly are at not having to paintball or pillow-****** their way through the Olympics, it is a vast leap from riding a horse to negotiating an obstacle course. Many

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. In 2022, a pentathlete group lobbying to maintain the status quo said that 95 percent of the participants it surveyed

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.

At the Paris Games, where the competition began on Thursday with the preliminary fencing rounds, competitors seemed variously annoyed, resigned and intrigued at the transformation of a sport embedded so deeply in modern Olympic lore.

“I think it’s a big downgrade of the pentathlon, and I don’t consider it interesting or challenging,” Martin Vlach of the Czech Republic said. He said the inclusion of obstacle, as the new discipline is being called, was such an affront to his notion of the sport and to de Coubertin’s lofty vision that he plans to retire after the Paris Games. “Horse riding is my favorite discipline, and I don’t see a future in pentathlon without it,” he said.

Meanwhile, the ******* pentathlete Fabian Liebig said that obstacle was fine as a concept, but that the sport needed to make the course, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair that features things like overhead rings and is

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more challenging.

“The obstacles are too easy,” he said. “They should increase the level of the effort you need to get through, because at the moment it looks more like a children’s playground.”

The Olympics are haunted by the ghosts of sports that were once included in the Summer Games, only to be later discarded later. Tug-of-war, solo synchronized swimming, live pigeon *********, rope-climbing, underwater swimming, polo — all these featured in at least one previous Olympics. (Conversely, some sports stage unlikely comebacks.

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and

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— last played at the Olympics in 1900 and 1908, respectively — are returning for the Los Angeles Games.)

And so when the International Olympic Committee ordered the U.I.P.M. to find a new fifth discipline as a condition of remaining in the Games, saying that the sport must become more accessible and

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the question became not if it would happen but what the replacement would be.

For a while, it looked as if the group would choose some sort of cycling event. But in November 2022,

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, saying that it now had “a mandate to propose a new-look modern pentathlon” that would keep it in the Games.

But obstacle is not on the athletes’ minds at Versailles. On Friday, the men began the second round of the competition: a medley of their five disciplines, condensed into 90 minutes to make the sport more exciting for spectators. Each athlete guides his or her horse over a series of jumps; competes in single-elimination fencing; swims 200 meters; and finishes with a “laser run” that combines running and ********* at targets with a laser *******. (They have a few minutes to rest, and change their outfits, between events.)

The pentathletes are feeling emotional, to put it mildly, about this last chance to ride in the Olympics. “I would be lying if I said I would not miss it,” Anna Jurt of Switzerland said.

Pentathlon rules specify that the athlete should ride an “unfamiliar horse,” meaning a horse he or she has just met and can spend just 20 minutes getting to know before competing. (The horses are provided by the hosts, and in this case come from French police and military academies.) While this arrangement can be exciting, it can go awry if the chemistry is off or if the horse “isn’t in a good mood,” as Liebig, the ******* athlete, put it.

At the Tokyo Games three years ago, the horse assigned to Annika ******* of Germany, who had been the leader up to that point, refused to go over any of the jumps, becoming increasingly agitated as a tearful ******* tried fruitlessly to get the animal under control. As the horse backed toward the fence, the ******* coach, Kim Raisner, gave it a

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and was ejected from the Games. ******* received no points for the show jumping portion and finished 31st overall out of 36 competitors.

The

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the episode brought to a sport that usually gets almost no attention sealed riding’s fate.

Pentathletes in Paris said that they would dearly miss the singular challenge of quickly establishing a rapport with a new horse — particularly since it’s a skill they’ve spent years perfecting.

“You go and meet the horse and give him or her a quick nod and say, ‘Are we doing this?’” Cooke said. “Maybe you give them a quick Polo mint.” (Horses like peppermint.)

Andres Fernandez of Guatemala said that he lets his unfamiliar horse give him a quick sniff when they’re introduced. “You need to have a calm mind-set to connect with the horse,” he said.

Many pentathletes say that the uncertainty adds a spicy element of chance to the proceedings, particularly when, as in a ****** date, the chemistry is off or the horse simply doesn’t like you. It’s a rare competitor who hasn’t gone off the rails with a horse at least once in his career. “As it is with people, it’s the same with horses,” Jurt said.

The Egyptian pentathlete Ahmed Elgendy, who won the silver medal at the Tokyo Games, recalled a competition in 2019 when he scored 190 out of a possible 300 points in the equestrian round after his horse knocked down one obstacle and flatly refused to jump over two more, even as Elgendy was racking up time penalties.

“I literally did everything wrong in this course,” he said.

The event will conclude on Sunday, with the women’s finals, but Friday’s proceedings already had a valedictory, wistful air. “Welcome to the final edition of riding in the pentathlon in our 112-year history,” the announcer said as the day began.

As he faced the hurdles in the ring on Grichka Tame, the mare who had been assigned to him, Alexandre Dallenbach of Switzerland spoke soothingly to her in French, telling her she was a good horse and could handle what he was asking her to do. They jumped a flawless round, and Dallenbach advanced to Saturday’s finals.

He stroked the horse’s neck and gave her a final compliment. “Tu es belle,” he said.

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#Dear #Pentathletes #Enjoy #Ride #Ready #Obstacle

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