The modern pentathlon will remove equestrian and replace it with American Ninja Warrior style obstacle courses for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The modern pentathlon is made up of five events with running, swimming, horse riding, shooting and fencing. The event has been around since 1912. Horse riding will now be replaced with an obstacle course like the ones seen on the TV show “American Ninja Warrior.” American Ninja Warrior has been a reality TV show since 2009.
Some of the motivation to remove the horse-riding portion of the competition was due to athletes being randomly assigned horses, making them hard to control. The motivation to remove the event grew strong when coach Kim Raisner leaned over a fence at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to strike the horse Saint Boy that her athlete, Annika Schleu was riding on. Schleu’s gold medal chances shrank as the horse Saint Boy did not cooperate.
Obstacle racing was tested during the 2022 Modern Pentathlon World Cup in Ankara, Turkey as a separate event. During the testing, the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM) claimed factors in its decision to test the obstacle included selecting a sport which examines the whole athlete, has reduced cost and complexity, has universal participation and good accessibility around the world, and has popularity among all age groups and its sustainability for organizers worldwide.
This is the first time that an event will be changed within the sport but events have seen changes over the years. For example, swimming was 300 meters until the 2000 Olympics when that was shortened to 200 meters. This year marks the first year in which swimming will be reduced even further to only 100 meters.
another modern pentathlonist here: the sport has been under attack since the 2000s. It was the king of all Olympic events throughout the 80s until money and viewership became the decisive factor.
IT was created and practiced by Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympics – as a “warrior” sport, the events of a solder.
long live Balczó!
I am sorry your sport has been under attack.
But I would not boast about de Coubertin. He was a Nazi sympathiser, white supremist and misogynist at the very least.
I gotta disagree about it being the “King of all Olympic events”. I watched a ton of Olympic sports from 76′ on and don’t remember anything about modern pentathlon.
Bring back the Aggro Crag for the final event!!!!
Now this is sick 😎
A swammer who has competed in Modern Pentathlon…
The horse ‘incident’ at Tokyo wasn’t good for the perception of the sport and riding. But there were fundamental problems with the governing body (UIPM) and how they approached the riding event. The point structure resulted in riding ‘not being that important’. As someone who learnt to ride it is possible to become competent, but like any sport takes effort, and incentive. The previous President was head of UIPM from 1993 – 2024… i’m sure corruption and/or incompetence wasn’t a problem.
Having said that I had a go at the obstacle course and it was pretty fun, and much more suited for someone with a swimming background!
The swim change from… Read more »
When Balczó was active, it was Hungary’s most popular sport. It takes one (small) village
I would love to see more modern pentathlon footage of the Olympics. I feel this sport isn’t shown as much as others.
The relevant news for us is that the swimming distance will be changed. There were some proficient swimmers in the last Olympics, I recall some sub 2 minutes on the men’s side. There are obviously 100-200 free specialists in swimming, but I imagine that for modern pentathlon, an athlete who doesn’t have a sub 2 minute 200 free can do a sub 1 minute 100 free with strength training alone.
The idea of modern pentathlon was to test athletes in what it was at the time a modern soldier (swimming, running, fencing, shooting, equestrian). To keep the spirit of the sport, they should change equestrian to wrestling, for example, since it could count for hand-to-hand combat.
Racing FPV drones
it’s not April 1, swimswam.
What’s funny is that if you look at the original nature of the Modern Pentathlon, this move actually makes a lot of sense. Its a much better simulation for modern urban warfare environments than horseback is.
Horseback riding is and has been a big deal. It’s a real challenge for “city kids” which is most of whom the pentathlonists are. It’s fun, exotic, exhilarating , scary, requires a lot of empathy, patience, wits and some luck, It is the most unpredictable event of the sport. Each horse in ridden twice in a race by two competitors and the horses are famously not good but still, must be good enough. Some riders are just absolutely hopeless and all they could resort to was the beating. Under pressure they should be given some slack… though? But still, be nice to our four-legged friends,
is this a joke?