Power ranking every single sport at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics
By Nick Villano
36. Modern Pentathlon
Modern Pentathlon sounds like a grueling event that tests the sheer depths that the human body can tap into. So you’re telling me we already have an insane marathon-like run, a devastating swim in choppy waters, and a bike ride that almost feels cruel, and we’re going to add two events to that? Not exactly.
The modern pentathlon combines fencing, freestyle swimming, equestrian show jumping, pistol shooting, and cross-country running. Okay then. So they removed the bile race and they added checks notes sword fighting, pistol shooting, and jumping with horses?
Who came up with this very strange combination of events? It was actually Viktor Balck, the President of the Organizing Committee for the 1912 Games. He wanted to emulate some of the traditions of Swedish multi-sport events. It was created as a simulation of possible military combat in the early 20th century.
We’d rather have the ancient pentathlon, which consisted of a foot race, wrestling, long jump, javelin, and discus. This would actually be a really interesting event. It takes five events that are all already higher on this list, and it would be a better litmus test on today’s athletes.