Perhaps I am celebrating too early. The final decision will not be taken before next year, and we have seen pentathlon evading eviction already in 2013, so... But I cannot refrain from rejoicing reading the news that modern pentathlon is among the three sports which are about to lose a spot in the 2028 Olympics.
But let us start at the beginning. The term modern in the pentathlon is a pure marketing term, invented by none other than our beloved baron, in order to promulgate a 19th century (and perhaps earlier) discipline and make it part of the 20th (and, alas, also 21st) century Olympics. I wrote about this quite some time ago and I made clear that the modern pentathlon is a sport that does not have its place in the olympic program.
In 2013 the IOC was looking for ways to reduce the program of the Olympics and everybody was convinced that the discipline to bear the consequences would be the modern pentathlon. (The days when Brundage proposed to remove the women's discipline as a way to slim down the program are fortunately long past). But people who were predicting the demise of the modern pentathlon were not counting with the presence of Juan Antonio Samaranch junior (the son of the late marqués). Samaranch is the vice-president of the "Union Internationale du Pentathlon Moderne" (UIPM) and a member of the IOC since 2001. So in February 2013 it was decided that wrestling was the discipline to be removed, despite the fact that it is one of the disciplines present in the olympic program since the ancient times. Fortunately for wrestling, the decision was reversed in September of the same year but the modern pentathlon was scot-free.
A few weeks ago the IOC decided that they would be removing boxing, weightlifting and modern pentathlon from the 2028 program, in order to make way for skateboarding, surfing, and sports climbing. (I will not discuss here the IOC tendency to choose disciplines that appeal to younger audiences to the point of making breakdancing an olympic discipline. I find that, were this to continue, the Olympic Games will lose the last strands of credibility they possess). Concerning boxing and weightlifting, the IOC decision has to do with well-known issues of corruption and doping, leadership matters aggravating the situation.
Modern pentathlon is a totally different story. As I pointed out above it is represented in the IOC by the heir of an IOC president. So the discipline would have been well protected had it not been for the incident in Tokyo during the equestrian event. In this event, the athletes have just 20 minutes to familiarise themselves with a horse they have never ridden. The german athlete was assigned a really difficult horse. It cleared just four fences before crashing into the fifth and then repeatedly refused to jump and, in fact, it had done the same earlier with another competitor. Her coach shouted at her to "really hit" the horse and she punched it herself. The coach was expelled from the Olympics and the UIPM decided to remove the equestrian event from the pentathlon program.
Curiously the UIPM announced that the obvious choice for the 5th discipline, cycling, was ruled out. Well, if they asked my opinion I would say that the best choice is an obstacle course, but that would necessitate quite some original thinking on behalf of the UIPM mandarins. But then, if they wished to have a really modern pentathlon, they would have to replace fencing as well. Perhaps cycling, obstacle course, swimming, target shooting, and cross-country-running (the last two combined in a biathlon-like event) would redeem the modern pentathlon to me.
So will the modern pentathlon disappear from the Olympics (whereupon it will become marginalised and soon extinct)? Let us not rejoice too fast. The final decision will not be taken before the 2023 IOC annual meeting. And even then an unfavourable decision can be overturned later. J.A. Samaranch will look after this. For the time being, let us cross our fingers and hope that this deCoubertenian relic is soon tossed onto the garbage heap of history.
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