Dhe era of riding as a discipline of modern pentathlon ends after the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. But what comes next? The Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM) has started a complicated process to find a suitable replacement. According to media reports, cycling should be, but the UIPM has not yet decided on the replacement. Several criteria have been established, including the requirement of “the perfect athlete” formulated by inventor Baron Pierre de Coubertin.
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The new sub-discipline should also “enable global accessibility and universality, be attractive and relevant for global youth and future generations and guarantee gender equality and fairness”, it continues. It is not unimportant that the successor to riding should “be exciting and easy to understand for the TV / digital audience and all sports fans” and “be inexpensive for both the athletes and the organizers”.
UIPM President Klaus Schormann emphasized, however, that cycling is not an option as a substitute discipline. “We have our ideas, but we won’t go public with them yet, but rather carefully plan and advise in working groups,” Schormann told the daily newspapers of the Rhein-Main publishing group. This process will take until the end of 2022, because it must also be tested in practice whether the sport fits into the competition format. That is why reports were wrong about an alleged decision that cycling would take the place of riding.
“That was so inhuman”
According to Schormann, the measures are not a reaction to the Olympic drama about Annika Schleu. “We took up this idea back in 2016 when we founded an innovation commission to modernize the pentathlon,” he explained. The new discipline also has to fit into the concept practiced for the first time in Tokyo of presenting the entire competition in a stadium.
Schormann once again condemned the way Annika Schleu was dealt with in public and in the media: “It was something inhuman how people dealt with a person here”. Schleu and national trainer Kim Raisner were heavily criticized in Tokyo for their controversial behavior when riding. Both were accused of cruelty to animals after Schleu tried to control the horse that had been drawn with the crop.
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The modern pentathlon has been fighting for Olympic survival for a long time and has had to change its regulations again and again. The combined competition of running and shooting with a laser pistol – as it existed in Rio and Tokyo – is such a concession and did not exist in Coubertin’s time. And the regulations for the 2024 Games in Paris are new and compressed to 90 minutes – but for the last time with the controversial riding.
“In the last few decades our sport has continued to develop in order to meet the changed expectations of the modern world,” commented Schormann in a press release. Shortly after the games, Schormann described the controversial show jumping as an “integral part of the modern pentathlon”.
The next changes “will be implemented in time for the Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles in 2028,” said the association. “The consultation process will involve specific stakeholders, namely athletes and coaches as well as media and marketing partners.”
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