Olympic sport: modern pentathlon

The Summer Olympics are on their way, so I will be writing about some of the more obscure sports and events of the competition. The Olympics isn't all gymnastics, track & field, and swimming.

One of my favorite sports is Modern Pentathlon. I even use "pentathlete" as the first part of my personal email.

The sport is a creation of the founder of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Coubertin. It is a multi-discipline sport, comprised of...yes, five events.

They are pistol shooting, epee fencing, 200m freestyle swimming, show jumping, and a 3k run. Coubertin wanted this to be a military sport. The events are intended to simulate a scout carrying a message through hostile territory.

Men have competed in this event since 1912. Women started in 2000. In the early days, the competition occurred over a five day period with one event each day. Now it takes place in a single day with about an hour between each event.

The video is of Sheila Taormina, an American athlete who is trying to qualify as a pentathlete for the Beijing games. If she does, she will be the first athlete ever...ever...to participate in three different sports at the Olympics. She was in the triathlon in 2000 and won a gold medal as part of the USA women's swim team in 2004.

What kind of pentathlete am I? Well...I can shoot ok, I know how to fence, I am a terrible swimmer, I can show jump, but I don't believe I could handle an unfamiliar horse on some of the higher jumps, and I haven't been running for some time. Nothing insurmountable, but I won't be challenging anyone at any of these events anytime soon.

I've always thought it would be great to build an Olympic training facility exclusively for Modern Pentathlon, that could be used by other athletes for their various sports, too.

If you can swim or run competitively, then USA Pentathlon would probably be interested in talking to you about learning the other three skill disciplines (shooting, fencing, and riding.) Who knows? You could wind up an Olympian.