No, you could do it in heats. With a Great White floating around. You must weave first, and not get eaten.
Duh dum.
Duh dum.
Duh duh duh duh…,
Basket!
Chomp!
And this is important…
The pentathlon community would love the support of the equestrian community as we try to restore and reform our sport.
As athletes and coaches and support people, we’ve been struggling for years against an international federation - and some national federations - run by self-serving old men who’ve refused to make changes to the riding phase. The UIPM Athletes Committee has sought reform for decades, the NFs have tried to change the rules by the parliamentary process. The old men at UIPM - the same faction who had the secret meeting with the secret vote to eliminate riding - wouldn’t hear of it.
The vast majority of pentathletes love horses and riding (I don’t know any who don’t). Some come from places or backgrounds in which pentathlon is their only route to horses - for example, the federation in Kyrgyzstan is very active in getting their athletes out on the horses.
So what I’m saying is, the pentathlon community would appreciate your support. It’s ok to laugh at the ridiculousness of finding another sport (it is ridiculous) but I’m asking you to keep in mind that horses and riding and horse welfare and riding safety is something that matters tremendously to the athletes, even if it doesn’t look that way due to the incompetence and arrogance of the international federation, which no longer has the support of the athletes.
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I like it. Legit outlet for (not so) pent up frustrations!
@JER can you recommend any actions that the equestrian community can take to support pentathlon athletes in this?
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Thanks for asking…
If you want to show support, you could do a horsey post on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter using the hashtags #savepentathlon (this is the one we’ve been using) and #equestriansforpentathlon.
You can write about how pentathletes are equestrians and you don’t want to see them lose their riding phase. That you stand for all equestrian sport, which includes pentathlon. Or that you support Olympic equestrian sport, which includes pentathlon. That you want the athletes to have a chance to change their sport for the better with the reforms to horse welfare and rider safety.
Feel free to disparage the UIPM leadership - the refusal to change the rules or value riding is 110% their fault.
So please, anyone who feels up to it, show a small sport some much-needed support. Help us stand up to the old guy cronies that have a stranglehold on our federation.
We really, really appreciate any efforts. I’ll update here if there’s more organized campaigning.
I want everyone to know that much of this is spearheaded by Team GB athlete Joe Choong, who won gold at Tokyo. He is as great a human as he is an athlete. He came to riding through pentathlon - he was not a rider before - but in his 10+ years in the sport has become a terrific rider and a passionate horse person. This is exactly the kind of person every equestrian sport needs - someone who knows the value of having horses in your life.
Thanks to all.
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Just curious how these old men still have so much power if all of the National Federations and athletes are against them? Is there not an election process for the UIPM leadership?
ETA: I see now that you say some of the NFs are on the side of the old men, so I’m guessing there’s a power bloc of traditionalists and the more progressive element of the sport doesn’t have quite enough members/support to wrest control of the sport away from them?
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Is there a way for athletes, et. al. to jettison the powers-that-be? Create a new organization? A kind of People’s Front of Judea v. Judean People’s Front thing. From my very cheap seats, it seems as if the equestrian community, up to and including the FEI, has offered numerous suggestions and support for improving horse welfare whilst keeping the riding phase, but the old guys at UIPM don’t seem interested.
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Yeah, I am sorry - without an overhaul of the system, I am not interested in supporting the equestrian phase of MP. They’ve shown what they will do with it, and it’s absolutely not in the best interests of the horse (or the riders), both safety and emotionally-wise.
Stop giving the organization your money. Until that happens, no matter what comes out of your mouth, you are supporting them.
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This is a problem that plagues most if not all international sport federations (IFs). These IFs started when most sports were restricted to males (usually white males) and then through a system of cronyism, nepotism and promoting allies, did not change at all to reflect the growing diversity of the sporting world. When change did happen, it was because outside forces, like the IOC or national laws, forced the changes.
Until 1992, UIPM was part of a federation with biathlon, the sport of skiing and shooting. The two sports split and became independent federations, with Klaus Schormann becoming the first President of UIPM. He’s still in that position 30 years later at age 75. Tell me that’s a sign of an IF’s health.
And, just for laughs, I’ll tell you what became of the biathlon federation. Biathlon - which I love to watch - became hugely successful with TV contracts in Europe. However, the federation was supremely corrupt with all sorts of scandals surrounding the tenure of president Anders Besseberg, a Norwegian who had a fondness for bribes, prostitutes and expensive hunting trips. The report is online, if anyone wants to know the details.
In the weightlifting federation, the perennial president - in his 80s - was forced out after an investigation revealed that he’d been threatening people, stealing money from IWF accounts and accepting bribes for failed doping tests. After he left, further investigation found $10.5 million unaccounted for.
That is sport governance in a nutshell. Corrupt through and through. Unaccountable. The weightlifting guy had also been promoted to be an IOC member, which tells you who makes it up the food chain to the IOC.
Pentathlon doesn’t have $10 million to embezzle nor is it prestigious enough to warrant prostitutes and luxury hunting trips. That’s good, I guess.
But the entrenchment in the old boy network is real and it’s crippling. The ‘elections’ are scheduled for later this month and all 17 of the candidates put forward for positions are men. 17 men and 0 women. That is seriously wrong and goes against the very clearly stated IOC policy for parity in representation. The old guys have doubled down, it seems.
There are two things that have to happen: (1) riding is reinstated (2) the leadership must go.
That’s what we’re campaigning for.
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We’re not giving them money. The UIPM gets its funding from the IOC.
So we’re not supporting them.
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This is what we’re aiming for. Leadership out.
Until then, we want the equestrian community to see that the pentathlon community is also a community of equestrians and that we’ve been trying for decades to improve the riding standards in our sport.
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How are the candidates selected? Could anyone put themselves forward?
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They wouldn’t exist if no one participated in the events. Drastic moves have to happen to get them out.
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Candidates have to be put forward by the national federations.
So this is partly a failure of the national federations, except that those are almost without exception also governed by the old boy network.
The women’s event was not in the Olympics - and therefore not given any credence - until 2000. The old guard was well in place by this time.
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The UIPM exists through the Olympic charter system and a lack of participation does not invalidate this organization’s governance capacity.
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If no one participated it would, and rather quickly.
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Yeah, I don’t see how anything short of a majority boycott of major events by the athletes would achieve anything.
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Why do the national federations who DO care about the riding portion not put forward good candidates? Is there just no one interested, or do all the federations have to agree on the candidates?
The UIPM is the IF recognized by the IOS as the governing body for modern pentathlon.
A boycott can’t change that. If athletes started their own organization, there would be no IOC recognition and therefore no Olympic participation.
The IOC and UIPM don’t care whether one single person participates in a UIPM event. That doesn’t impact the governance structure and they’d take legal action against any group that claimed to be the international sports federation for the five sports named in the UIPM Constitution - Riding, shooting, fencing, running and swimming.
I understand where your comments are coming from but they’re not actually responsive to the situation. I hope you can understand that from this explanation.
(Also, athletes have refused to continue at World Cups as a protest to the riding situation. The event was abandoned but it didn’t lead to any changes at UIPM other than to demonize the women who they identified as leading the revolt.)
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Some of the candidates might be very good. My complaint is that there are 17 men and 0 women up for positions.
This is despite the IOC directive for parity. And it’s weird because the UIPM is so desperate to kowtow to the IOC, except not on the issue of representation.
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