At the dawn of the 20th century, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, envisioned a multi-sport discipline that would test the skills of the consummate warrior. That sport – consisting of fencing, shooting, swimming, running, and riding – came to be called Modern Pentathlon. In its early years, modern pentathlon was dominated by the military and limited to men only. Today, pentathlon is open to anyone willing to train long hours to build an extraordinary skill set in an obscure sport devoid of commercial opportunities. The sport remains as pure as the Baron’s original concept for an endeavor that “tests a man’s moral qualities as much as his physical resources and skills, producing thereby the ideal, complete athlete.”
Then JER showed up.
The airline agent was wearing an undersized candy-red cowboy hat and an outfit that wouldn’t look out of place on a motel room floor during a one-night stand at the Calgary Stampede. Which, I learned, was in full swing this week and explained not only the cutesy work get-up but also the crowded flights and exorbitant rental car fees in the city of my destination.
The ersatz cowgirl poked at one of my bags, the resulting metallic clang a cause for concern. “What have you got here?”
“Fencing equipment.”
“Like swords?”
“Weapons,” I said, using the preferred term. “Not sharp. Electric.”
“And in this one?” She pointed to my other bag.
“That’s the one with the gun.”
“Oh. Oh?”
“An air pistol.”
“You must be…” she began, then stopped.
“A lot of fun at a party?” I finished helpfully.
A nervous laugh, followed by “Did you empty the air cartridges? They can explode at altitude.”
“Of course.”
I offer to open my bags so she can inspect the contents but she declines. She’s probably been at her job long enough to know better.
Had she taken me up on my offer, she’d probably still have no idea what I was doing this weekend. She’d see, in addition to my air pistol and fencing kit, a full set of riding gear, a Speedo racing suit and goggles for swimming, running shorts and shoes and associated sporting paraphernalia. This could only mean one thing: I’m on my way to the Canadian National Modern Pentathlon Championships in Red Deer, Alberta.
Oddly enough, my entree to the sport of pentathlon wasn’t though riding. Last year, I started fencing at a club near Vancouver, BC and met some pentathletes who invited me to their weekly shooting and fencing practices which were conveniently held at a facility just around the corner from my house. I jumped at the opportunity but I’m such a sucker for sports and games of any kind, I’d have done the same if it had been Candyland and Four Square.
So here I was in Red Deer. I’d set a realistic goal for myself: to arrive at the correct venues at the appointed time, not get eliminated and finish with a positive integer score.
But first, a confession: I’ve never pentathled before, modern or otherwise. Actually, aside from watching some appalling riding on TV during the Olympics, I’ve never even seen the sport in action. I know it might be a bit much to kick off my career at the Canadian Rolex of Pentathlons but this is also the only event on the calendar so I don’t have much choice.
A second confession: my competence is questionable. I know how to fence, swim, ride, run and (not really) shoot but I have only a cursory understanding of the rules and how to operate some of the equipment. This is why I thought it was funny that the entry form required a certified trainer’s reference for riding skills but didn’t require proof that a competitor is safe around guns. Okay. Maybe not so funny.
The registration table is in a function room of a hotel that looks like a vestige of the Soviet occupation – Red Deer, get it? – except that Alberta, to my knowledge, was never a socialist republic, at least not a Soviet one. I set about correcting the various misspellings of my last name and explain that I’m not really Canadian. But no one seems to mind, this is an international competition and there are competitors from the UK, the US, Poland and even one from South Africa, although, truth be told, she’s one of my clubmates from BC.
I learn that I’m the only competitor in the women’s masters division (’30 and over’, a euphemism in my case) so, provided I accomplish my stated goal, I see a podium finish, albeit a lonely one, in my future. Then I look through the program and I’m not so sure. The directions to the venues are sprinkled with local landmarks, roads with ever-changing numerical names and warnings about flooding and poor road surfaces. One venue is designated only by GPS coordinates. Oh dear. Oh Red Deer. I’m so glad I packed my portable navigation system.
I present my air pistol and fencing mask for mandatory inspection. The pistol is checked for trigger weight and I demonstrate that the grip doesn’t cover my thumb. Then the gun is placed inside a rectangular plexiglass box with a sliding top. The gun-in-box tableau looks like a 1970s conceptual art piece. “Why?” I ask. “To see if it fits,” the gun guy replies. Ask a Yoko Ono question, get a Yoko Ono answer.
The brief technical meeting for officials and competitors reinforces how little I know about this sport. The riding director hands out a cheat sheet on the horses in the riding draw. Most of them are said to ‘need lef’. As I start to panic over my lack of fluency in the language of pentathlon, I realize this is probably just a persistently ham-fisted typo. We hear that all horses were tested over the course for suitability this afternoon to make final roster decisions. I’m mildly relieved but not surprised that the four year-old chestnut TB mare who started jumping ‘recently’ didn’t make the cut.
Discussion then turns to the combined run/shoot event, a new feature of pentathlon, replacing the old separate-phase format just last year. (Everyone thinks this is a positive change for the sport. The shooting phase was universally described as ‘boring.’) A heated debate ensues about the siting of the penalty box and as it intensifies, the organizers ask for a show of hands to vote on locations. I don’t have an opinion because, until now, I didn’t know there was a penalty box or how one ends up in it. But hey, this is Canada and we all know Canadians love a penalty box.
Back at my accommodations at the local college, I meet my suitemates. Both are very cool women. One is a former national field hockey player from England who injured her back, needed to find a new sport and decided that fencing, riding, running, shooting and swimming would be easier on her back than just playing hockey. The other is a champion open water swimmer from California who read about pentathlon in a book. In January. At the time, she’d never ridden a horse or fenced or shot. But when you can swim the English Channel, this is just a technicality, and she’s here to compete in her first full five-phase. Tomorrow will be her very first-ever showjumping round. She has no idea how brave she is.
