Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The Olympic Sport of Modern Pentathlon Gets a Little Less Penta - NYTimes.com

QUADROTHLENIA: In what the NYT has rightly called the most "blatant mismatch between a title and its meaning in sports since 1993, when Penn State’s athletics program became the 11th member of the 'Big Ten' Conference," the Olympic sport of Modern Pentathlon is going from five events to four.

Baron de Coubertin's dream of the 19th Century cavalry soldier -- who shoots, fences, swims, rides an unfamiliar horse, and runs -- will instead combine the first and last events as a land-based biathlon finale, with the athletes shooting a pistol at five targets, then running a kilometer, then shooting-and-running again twice more en route to the finish line. (Hell, why not throw in Slamball while you're at it?)

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