London 2012 blog

I’ll start with a short History lesson…

The first Pentathlon was introduced at the 18th Olympiad in 708 BC, probably by the Spartans as a method of training soldiers. It consisted of running the length of the stadium, jumping, throwing a spear, throwing the discus and wrestling. This multi-disciplined event held a position of unique importance in the Games and was considered to be the climax, with the winner ranked as ‘Victor Ludorum’.

Admiration for the Pentathlon was shared by the founder of the Modern Olympic Movement, Baron Pierre de Coubertin whose efforts to have the event introduced into the Olympic programme had begun in 1909, and after two failed attempts, were rewarded in 1911 when he announced ‘The Holy Ghost of sport illuminated my colleagues and they accepted a competition to which I attach great importance’.

The Modern Pentathlon, introduced at the 5th Olympiad in Stockholm in 1912 comprised the contemporary sports of pistol shooting, fencing, swimming, horse riding and running. It was de Coubertin’s belief that this event, above all others, would test a competitor’s moral qualities as much as their physical resources and skills, thereby producing the ‘complete athlete’.

This same format exists today although where competitors to compete in all 5 sports over one day. A points system for each event is based on a standard performance earning 1,000 points and the winner is the pentathlete who has accumulated the most points at the end of the 5 events.

Anyway, enough history and on to the weekend’s action. The weather was typically British for the UIPM Modern Pentathlon World Cup at Millfield School over the weekend - gale force winds and driving rain on Saturday for the Mens Finals and bright sunshine and shades for the Womens event on Sunday.

I wasn’t there for the Mens Event but all the talk when I arrived early on Sunday morning was of a fantastic performance from the British men, particularly Sam Weale, who finished 3rd overall. Nick Woodbridge also ended up in 8th place, and this bodes well for Beijing qualification, although there is certainly still some work to be done in the next couple of months if this is to be achieved.

The first event in a Modern Pentathlon is Shooting, which normally takes place first thing in the morning. Pentathletes are required to fire 20 shots at a target 10 metres away using a 4.5mm calibre air pistol. Each shot must be fired within 40 seconds. As you would expect, the accuracy of the shooting is almost perfect and there wasn’t a huge number of points separating any of the 36 competitors at the end of it.

Just around the corner from the Shooting range, the athletes and spectators moved en masse to the Fencing Salle for event number 2. In the Fencing, the athletes fence once with every other competitor in sudden death bouts of 1 minute with the target area being the whole body. With bouts happening on 9 pistes simultaneously, the action is fast and furious with plenty to keep your eye on.



400 metres across the school campus and the entourage descended on the impressive 50 metre swimming pool at Millfield. There was a great atmosphere for this one, with the tropical conditions and loud music combining to get the crowd going. The swimming event is a 200m freestyle race, with athletes seeded in heats according to their personal best time. 3 of the 5 British girls swam in the final heat, meaning that on paper they were 3 of the 8 fastest swimmers in the competition. Fortunately though the swimming is done in water rather than paper, but all of the Brits still secured good points. After 3 events, they were all still in contention.



On to the Riding, where the field tends to get separated and the likely winners start to come to the fore. In this event, pentathletes ride unfamiliar horses over a 350m-450m course that features 12 show jumps. This event is made particularly interesting by the fact that the athletes select their horses by lot and have just 20 minutes and five practice fences for warm-up before entering the competition arena. The visible nervousness of the athletes as they draw their horses is interesting to watch and can make or break their competition. In the Olympic Games in Athens 4 years ago, British pentathlete Kate Allenby was unfortunate to draw a horse which knocked almost every fence down. After the event Kate described the experience ‘my horse behaved like an emu. He had his head up so high he couldn’t see his feet. I had to drop him between fences just to get his feet on the ground.’



The importance of the draw hit home even more when the unfortunate Lithuanian competitor’s mount showed little appetite for jumping any fences and seemed more intent on galloping aimlessly around the perimeter of the Arena. Sadly she scored a ‘zero’ and was effectively out of the competition. British athlete Heather Fell was the 12th rider to go and to the delight of the ever-increasing crowd, managed to complete a clear round (one of only two in the whole competition). This put her into overall first position and the chance of a home gold medallist suddenly became a real possibility.

The final event is a 3,000m run with a handicapped start. The competitor in the lead after the first 4 events starts the run first and the calculations for all other competitors’ start times are based on the number of points they trail the leader by, with 4 Pentathlon points equating to a 1 second handicap. After her superb ride, Heather Fell started the run first, responded to the cheers of the crowd, and fought off all the chasers to take the gold medal. A great achievement for Heather and everyone at Pentathlon GB.

So, a sporting day that began at 8am in the Shooting Hall had finished at around 7.45pm on the track. It was a long day but a very entertaining one, and one that Heather Fell won’t forget in a while. There’s certainly plenty to watch in Modern Pentathlon and the athletes, with their mastery of 5 very different sports, are certainly very talented. We should all look forward to Beijing where we hope Great Britain will be on the podium again.