indefinite articles

I’ve never been a big fan of spectator sports. The Olympics, regardless, have held a special place in my heart since I was a kid. Though I always make sure to tune in for the big-name events like swimming and gymnastics, I also keep an eye out for less popular but equally entertaining events. There’s one that’s obscure enough and oddly named enough to truly stand out: the modern pentathlon.

Imagine taking an athlete who’s strong in one event and forcing him to perform in another, completely unrelated event. Sure, Michael Phelps could wipe the floor with anyone on the planet in swimming, but how well would he do at, say, target shooting? And that’s the modern pentathlon: equestrian show jumping, 10m air pistol shooting, epee fencing, a 200m freestyle swim, and a 3k cross-country run - to the death. Okay, not really the last part.

However, the modern pentathlon has faced some calls for its removal from the Olympic program in recent years. The International Olympic Committee voted in 2005 to keep it around until 2012, but after that there aren’t any guarantees. Help prevent such a catastrophic loss of sports awesomeness. Petition the IOC, or just watch, the modern pentathlon. The women’s modern pentathlon will be on MSNBC on Friday morning, while the men’s will only be online.

A brief history: The modern pentathlon has been around since 1912 and was invented especially for the Olympics by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Games. Though the grouping of events seems random, the logic behind it is amazing: Coubertin wanted to simulate the experiences of a 19th century cavalry soldier. Seriously. He was inspired by the original pentathlon, which tested military skill at the ancient Games.

Pentathletes in their off-track garb.

Though most modern pentathlon competitors are civilians these days, several events are modified to more closely simulate battle conditions, making them more intense without that pesky fear of death.

Fencing, for example, is epee fencing to one touch. One freaking touch! To give you a sense of scale, standard fencing bouts go to the first with five touches, and elimination-round bouts go to fifteen. This kind of bout adds “realism” – one stab wound in a real swordfight would probably be enough to incapacitate you – but taken as a fencing, that’s crazy intense. There’s no overall strategy; fencers are just going for blood.

Actual pentathletes. Not an actual pentathlon arena – yet.

Equestrian also cranks up the insanity. In the show-jumping portion, pentathletes don’t provide their own horses. Instead, they are randomly assigned horses 20 minutes before the competition. (This is another supposedly battle-realistic element, but I’d think in a real battle you’d tell a show-jumping fence to fuck itself, and take off.) I don’t know much about equestrian, but I would guess that most Olympic riders had trained with their horses for months if not years before the Games. Twenty minutes not just to get used to a horse but to get used to it on an Olympic show-jumping course? Pretty impressive.

The next two events are somewhat simplified, but not so dramatically changed. The shooting portion is shorter than it is as an individual event, with fewer shots and less time per shot for pentathletes. Swimming is pretty straightforward as well. But before you start to think the pentathlon is being merciful, the 3k run is last, and it has the most hardcore handicap of all. Runners get their start times based on their point total going in, and whoever wins the race wins the gold medal, regardless of when they started. Makes for some dramatic finishes, which is the reason people watch the Olympics in the first place.

However, it’s never really caught on in the U.S., and it faces an uphill battle to earn more fans. American men have never won gold and haven’t even medaled since 1960. An American woman won silver in 2000, but her success unfortunately didn’t do much to raise the sport’s profile. Another problem for drawing people in is the length. It’s an all-day competition in five events, three of which aren’t even races, so it’s also not as easy to sit through as, say, a 10-second sprint.

It’s too bad, because the depth and breadth of skills a modern pentathlete needs outpaces those needed in pretty much every other event. Maybe to save time and earn more viewers, organizers could start combining events – they could do target shooting in between each lap of swimming and fence while on horseback. Until that happens, I’m going to do my part to save this concentration of badassery from extinction. And you’d better, too, or else eight years from now a group of frustrated, insane athletes could trample, drown, shoot, stab and stampede over us all.

Maybe that could be a hand grenade.

That would be quite the battle simulation.