This is a new opportunity to shine the sublime riding track located in the gardens of Versailles. Starting this Thursday, August 8, the temporary stadium of the castle will host the modern pentathlon events that will take place over four days. Very popular in Eastern European countries, this discipline created in 1912 – which brings together fencing, horse riding, swimming, running and shooting events – remains however little known in France, where it is practiced by only a little more than 2,700 licensees. For The Expresssports historian François Bourmaud deciphers the reasons for such a lack of love among the French for this practice, and analyses its difficult establishment in the territory.
L’Express: What exactly is modern pentathlon, and how did this discipline develop in France?
François Bourmaud: This sport was created by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, inventor of the modern Olympic Games, for the 1912 Games. At the time, it was inspired by the ancient pentathlon, which combined the events of discus and javelin throwing, long jump, running and wrestling. He replaced these events with fencing, shooting, horse riding, swimming and running: his idea was to draw inspiration from a military situation in which a soldier would find himself alone behind enemy lines, and would have to defend himself with his sword and pistol, ride off on horseback to return to his regiment, cross a river and run to the front.
In the historical context of the 1910s, Pierre de Coubertin thus created the “perfect” sport: it developed all military qualities, and very well illustrated the spirit of the “gentleman amateur”, this notion according to which athletes must excel in all elitist disciplines such as swimming, horse riding or fencing, without necessarily specializing in a specific practice. The goal is to show that one can develop all physical and moral qualities, through a series of diverse and demanding disciplines.
What is the resonance of such a sport in the historical context of the time?
It was 1912, a time when France’s defeat by Prussia in 1870 was still fresh in everyone’s mind. For many, it was a real trauma: France was going through an existential crisis after having dominated a large part of Europe for a long time, and the unification of Germany at the end of this war was experienced as a humiliation for the French.
A whole section of the French elite is looking for a way to regenerate itself, many intellectuals are trying to copy the German model, particularly in education or the military system. But Pierre de Coubertin is one of those who consider that it is rather on the side of England that one should look, and considers that sport is an essential tool for restructuring the British elites. He therefore tries to imitate this strategy, by reinforcing the physical vigor of the national elites, in a discipline associated with a set of moral values: command, decision-making, discipline, taste for risk.
For a long time, this sport was considered elitist. Is this still the case today?
In France, it is indeed a sport that has long been practiced by the French elite and military. The two times the French team won the bronze medal (in 1968 at the Mexico Games, then in 1984 at the Los Angeles Games, Editor’s note), it was made up of military personnel. The same goes for Élodie Clouvel, who is part of the national gendarmerie and won the individual silver medal at the 2016 Rio Games. The discipline has nevertheless become more democratic over time, with a certain number of small clubs opening in France, and the development of extremely high-quality professional training centers, such as Insep (the National Institute of Sport in Paris), the national altitude training center in Font-Romeu, in Occitanie, or the Creps (Centre de ressources d’expertise et de performance sportive) in Aix-en-Provence and Talence, near Bordeaux.
In the 1960s, in order to make the sport more popular, it was decided that athletes would no longer participate in competitions with their own horses: it was up to the organization to provide the mounts, which were then drawn at random for each pentathlete, who had to adapt to them. The fact that the sport was integrated into the federal framework also led to a drop in the price of licenses: it costs 150 to 200 euros per year to register in a modern pentathlon club, which is in line with the average for other sports.
How then can we explain such a low number of licensees in France?
Despite these advances, there are still practical obstacles. To train for the modern pentathlon, you need a swimming pool, a shooting range, a weapons room and horses, which is much more complicated than going to the local football club! From a material point of view, these are fairly expensive facilities and structures, which deprives a whole series of municipalities of a pentathlon club. The second weakness of this sport is that it unfortunately receives very little media coverage. For a long time, the events lasted five days, required a lot of audiovisual resources and explanations to understand how the competitions worked, which did not help its telegenicity. Finally, each decade has had a great French modern pentathlon champion, but none of them won gold, which contributed to making the practice invisible.
Are there countries where, on the contrary, this sport is more popular?
Modern pentathlon is much more popular in Eastern European countries, such as Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic or Russia, because they have both a strong fencing tradition and a very strong military tradition. Most of the time, the Olympic athletes from these nations are military personnel. There are also countries, such as Mexico or Egypt, that saw this tradition emerge later, always motivated by a very developed military tradition.
Following the whip and spur blows given by German rider Annika Schleu to her horse at the Tokyo Olympics during the pentathlon events, it was decided that horse riding would no longer be present at the Los Angeles Olympics. What are the consequences for riders?
This animal abuse at the Tokyo Games sparked a wave of emotion around the world, mainly on social media. The International Federation considered that it was probably the right time to transform this equestrian event, especially since it was quite heavy in terms of organization. It was therefore decided that it would be replaced by an obstacle course for the Los Angeles Games, in four years. At first, this decision provoked an outcry from many athletes, who felt that the entire philosophy of their sport was being changed: it was necessary to adapt to the required horse, it required a lot of training, with athletes who had been practicing equestrianism for years to shine at the Olympics… But these criticisms were quickly stifled, since it was simply a matter of life or death for the Federation. Without this compromise, the discipline could have disappeared from the Olympics. Historically, it will also be interesting to see if the sport continues in future Olympics.
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