Modern Pentathalon

[MHM]

@Equkelly

You can be an athlete in other sports and do ours too.

You can.

But you have to actually, you know, try to do the sport. Not ride once a month and then think you can go jump around a 4 foot course on a strange horse.

That would be hard enough even for someone who was a good rider.

[endlessclimb]

Plus: wonder what the horses would say if they could talk. Think they would volunteer for some of those rides, to be crashed through giant fences by know-nothings who are allowed to get back on and force the horse to continue? Think those rider could feel a lameness if their lives depended on it?

Seems like animal welfare is not thought of at all in this sport.

Disclaimer: I’m sure there are some wonderful riders in this sport. I’m clearly talking about the ones that aren’t, and have no business out there over a 4’ course. The rules should be written to stop those wrecks, and to keep the horses safe from that kind of dog poop riding.

[Equkelly]

@MHM

You can.

But you have to actually, you know, try to do the sport. Not ride once a month and then think you can go jump around a 4 foot course on a strange horse.

That would be hard enough even for someone who was a good rider.

Totally agree with you. Obviously there’s no excuse for the athletes lessoning once a month but the organizers setting the jumps at 4 feet high is just setting them up to fail.

[Djones]

Already the average Joe or Judy has stopped clutching their pearls over Modern Pentathalon. I think even most common folks get it that it’s some weird fringe thing.

There is no hellfire.
There is substantive jading.
(I’m going to need hip-waders here in a minute).

OUTRAGE! OUTRAGE! WE GOT YER OUTRAGE OVER HERE!!

[endlessclimb]

PETA picked it up. It made global news.

The general populace doesn’t know the difference between this and actual show jumping - to them it looks the same. They also don’t care to learn the difference. Easier to just paint it all with the same brush.

And, yeah… I’ll be clutching my pearls over the wanton disregard for the well being of the horses, until the rules are changed to protect them. We, horsepeople, all should be.

[Jealoushe]

By first hand accounts from victim (s), yes.

[Xanthoria]

Not sure if already posted but this Onion-worthy quote is an extract from an article about how the horses were not to blame, readable here: The head of world pentathlon has hit back at criticism of the horses during the Olympics, saying athletes are to blame for their bad performances

““Nobody from the organising committee should be blamed. Everything was genius, was super, and I’m very happy with Secretary General Shiny Fang in what we have achieved together with the organising committee.””

I had a little LOL…

[JER]

@endlessclimb

Well, then quit openly crapping on the ideas that outliers to the sport have, as you have been for this entire thread. Your chosen sport brought this hellfire down on us, so please pardon me when I don’t think ‘self governing’ is working well for yall. You proved it for us all. At the effing OLYMPICS.

How very grandiose. Hellfire even.

But to say I’ve been ‘openly crapping’ on others ideas for the entire thread? Considering I popped in around post number 375, I believe that’s just a bit of an exaggeration seeing as I wasn’t here to openly crap on those posts.

[Equkelly]

@JER

But to say I’ve been ‘openly crapping’ on others ideas for the entire thread? Considering I popped in around post number 375, I believe that’s just a bit of an exaggeration seeing as I wasn’t here to openly crap on those posts

Seriously, ignore her. She usually pops in threads for pile ons because she just likes to punch down. Unfortunately for her, many of us are interested in what you bring to the conversation so let her shout into an empty void. She’ll go find another topic where she can be as mean and toxic as she wants when she realizes nobody here wants to play her game. Trust me.

[JER]

@MHM

Personally, I’m still inclined to think the best idea is to just swap out the horses for bicycles and be done with it. There’s a much lower risk of serious injury or worse for both the humans and the horses that way. And it would be much easier to round up 40 appropriate bikes than 40 appropriate horses, that’s for sure.

Really, it would be like taking a triathlon and adding fencing and shooting to it to make up a pentathlon.

The fencing is no less outdated than the horse from the roots of the sport. But the epée (?) cannot get hurt in practice or in competition. Or if it does, you can just pull another one out of the case and carry on.

If I wanted to cycle, I’d be in triathlon or something. Many people come to pentathlon because of the riding. Many pentathletes are horse people. For some reason, that message isn’t getting across. Pentathlon isn’t looking for a substitute sport.

Fencing is not an ‘outdated’ sport. Fencing is actually booming in the US and it’s probably the most diverse and inclusive sport going. It’s a difficult, beautiful, technical sport that all ages, sizes, races, economic brackets participate in. I’m at a fencing camp this week and I haven’t seen any signs of it being outdated - there’s a lot of young people involved in the sport.

In pentathlon, fencing is one-touch epee to simulate a duel. You get one minute to score against your opponent. Double touches don’t count. If neither person scores, it’s a double defeat. Very fun, very challenging, requires a lot of lessons to be good.

[MHM]

@JER

Fencing is not an ‘outdated’ sport.

It is outdated in the context of the roots of the sport, as I said in my previous post.

If you handed a soldier a military dispatch today, and told him to take it to the other side of Afghanistan or wherever, he would be more no more likely to use a sword than he would be to use a horse.

If anything, he might be a tiny bit more likely to use a horse, although even that seems very unlikely. I believe there was a movie about the American soldiers who responded on the other side of the world shortly after 9/11, and they actually did use horses at some point. I doubt they also used swords.

[endlessclimb]

Xoxo

[Virginia_Horse_Mom]

@JER

Fencing is not an ‘outdated’ sport. Fencing is actually booming in the US and it’s probably the most diverse and inclusive sport going. It’s a difficult, beautiful, technical sport that all ages, sizes, races, economic brackets participate in. I’m at a fencing camp this week and I haven’t seen any signs of it being outdated - there’s a lot of young people involved in the sport.

Totally true! I’ve actually seen a local program advertising, and been curious about my kids possibly trying it, just for something different and new for them to learn about

[B-burg_Dressage]

So how do you/we/whoever get people to realize that it takes lots of lessons to be good at riding like it does fencing? I think we can all agree the crux of the issue is that it sounds like some of the athletes don’t take the riding portion seriously (the whole complete versus compete thing mentioned upthread).

I think the simple ideas of lowering fence height and making a horse/rider fall automatic elimination. Plowing through a fence counts for more faults than a rail. These things could be done without changing the whole culture I’d think?

Holding the organizers and officials to higher standards sounds like it’s going to be a MUCH harder task. Especially based on their tone deaf responses thus far.

PS–I appreciate your participation and conversation! I like that horses are involved, their welfare just clearly needs to be moved to the top of the list.

[trubandloki]

@Djones

Already the average Joe or Judy has stopped clutching their pearls over Modern Pentathalon. I think even most common folks get it that it’s some weird fringe thing.

There is no hellfire.
There is substantive jading.
(I’m going to need hip-waders here in a minute).

OUTRAGE! OUTRAGE! WE GOT YER OUTRAGE OVER HERE!!

Are you not on Facebook?
I think pretty much daily someone else I know, or some group I am in, shares a meme about this situation, but they do not call it pentathlon, they blame it on show jumping.

@endlessclimb

The general populace doesn’t know the difference between this and actual show jumping - to them it looks the same. They also don’t care to learn the difference.

The meme mentioned above. It talks about the caring wonderful barrel racer versus the photo of this event with the rider crying and the horses teeth showing, and calls it show jumping.

@Equkelly

Seriously, ignore her. She usually pops in threads for pile ons because she just likes to punch down. Unfortunately for her, many of us are interested in what you bring to the conversation so let her shout into an empty void. She’ll go find another topic where she can be as mean and toxic as she wants when she realizes nobody here wants to play her game. Trust me.

This is kind of funny coming from you.

[endlessclimb]

If I didn’t go to look at the article, I’d have sworn that was a quote from the former potus…

Shiny Fang??

[aredhel]

I agree with your post. I certainly don’t want to see the equestrian phase removed, I just would like to see it made safer. If the average pentathlete isn’t able to ride more than once a week and many come from non-equestrian backgrounds and haven’t been riding for years, then the course difficulty needs to reflect that.

I like that horses are involved, their welfare just clearly needs to be moved to the top of the list.

I’d put rider welfare up there as well. It’s not always clear to inexperienced riders just how deadly a rotational fall can be. The worst of those riders are taking a far bigger risk than they probably realize. This is the ONLY sport in Pentathlon in which death is a realistic possibility.

[Equkelly]

@trubandloki

This is kind of funny coming from you.

I don’t think it’s funny at all. Im frequently of the minority opinion here myself and have experienced the pile on a million times.

Others, however, are frequently of the majority opinion and just punch down at anyone else not of that opinion because they find it fun.

I’m not near to pick on @JER or attack her. I’m interested in her perspective and I’ve learned a lot from her point of view. It’s really sad that someone here is trying to just bully her out of the convo when she has added a lot and educated us. I’m not going to get mad at her for my frustrations with MP. I’m half tempted to ask her where I signup!

Edit- Also who on earth is taking criticism from freaking barrel racers seriously?!?

[jvanrens]

@Old_Mac_Donald

@Virginia_Horse_Mom

And then there is the fact that they clearly have tried to hide footage of all the riding, by pulling it from NBC.

It has been pulled from Channel 7 too, which is the Australian broadcaster

It’s still on CBC for now.

[JER]

@B-burg_Dressage

So how do you/we/whoever get people to realize that it takes lots of lessons to be good at riding like it does fencing? I think we can all agree the crux of the issue is that it sounds like some of the athletes don’t take the riding portion seriously (the whole complete versus compete thing mentioned upthread).

There are some athletes who don’t ride as much as they should. There are many reasons for this including other commitments in life and proximity to riding.

OTOH, the British team has very high riding standards. The Korean team rides every day and it shows in their improvement over the years. The Chinese team has a coach from Belgium and those athletes ride regularly. The Polish athletes ride excellent horses at their (excellent) training center. Same with the Hungarians, who have a riding school with terrific horses right in downtown Budapest near the train station.

In case anyone is wondering, the US has basically no riding standards and it shows. Although I want to mention that Sammy Schultz, who competed in Tokyo, is an excellent rider with an eventing background.

There are countries with weak fencing too so I’m not sure that everyone everywhere is fencing instead of riding. BTW, the US for the most part is very weak in fencing too.