UIPM Sports

We create opportunities to develop athletes toward the complete Modern Pentathlete from the ages of 7 to 70+ in the Western Cape province. Although these are not Olympic disciplines they develop the athlete towards that code. However, the development disciplines all have SA Championship and World Champs opportunities for the athletes to represent their provinces and country.

What is Modern Pentathlon

The modern pentathlon is an Olympic sport that comprises five different events; fencing (one-touch épée), freestyle swimming (200m), equestrian show jumping (15 jumps), and a final combined event of pistol shooting and cross country running (3200m). This last event is now referred to as the laser-run, since it alternates four legs of laser pistol shooting followed by an 800m run (for 3200m in total). The event is inspired by the traditional pentathlon held during the ancient Olympics; as the original events were patterned on the skills needed by an ideal Greek soldier of the era, the modern pentathlon is similarly patterned on events representing the skills needed by cavalry behind enemy lines.

The sport has been a core sport of the Olympic Games since 1912 despite attempts to remove it. A world championships for modern pentathlon has been held annually since 1949.

Originally the competition took place over four or five days; in 1996 a one-day format was adopted in an effort to be more audience-friendly. Modern pentathlon, despite its long Olympic history, has had to justify its inclusion in the modern Olympic Games several times. On February 11, 2013 in Lausanne, the IOC confirmed modern pentathlon once again as one of the 25 core sports of the Olympic program through to 2020. The governing body, Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM), administers the international sport in more than 90 countries in all the continents of the world.


The foundation of the modern pentathlon is disputed. On the one hand, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, claimed authorship. On the other hand, Viktor Balck, the President of the Organizing Committee for the 1912 Games, showed that he made use of the long tradition of Swedish military multi-sports events, to create a manageable modern pentathlon.

The name derives from the Greek péntathlon “contest of five events”. The addition of modern to the name distinguishes it from the original pentathlon of the ancient Olympic Games, which consisted of the stadion foot race, wrestling, long jump, javelin, and discus. As the events of the ancient pentathlon were modeled after the skills of the ideal soldier to defend a castle of that time, Coubertin created the contest to simulate the experience of a 19th-century cavalry soldier behind enemy lines: he must ride an unfamiliar horse, fight enemies with pistol and sword, swim, and run to return to his own soldiers. In the 1912 Games, with only officers competing, they were, however, permitted to use their own horses. Up to the 1952 Olympics the ordinary cavalry soldier was considered a professional athlete, as he was riding and training horses for a living, while the officer was the amateur. As long as there was no official international federation for Modern Pentathlon an IOC committee was set up for the sport making use of the expertise of IOC members.

The event was first held at the 1912 Olympic Games, and was won by Swedish athlete Gösta Lilliehöök. The modern pentathlon has been on the Olympic program continuously since 1912. A team event was added to the Olympic Games in 1952 and discontinued in 1992. After much lobby work of the President of the German Modern Pentathlon Federation Prof. Wilhelm Henze, women were for the first time admitted on a trial basis at the World Championships in San Antonio in 1977, and at the official world championships in 1981. An event for women was added in 2000. A World Championship is held every year. The competitions include Men and Women’s Individual and Team event together with relay events for Men and Women and, since 2010, a mixed relay event.

Competition format

Athletes gain points for their performance in each event and scores are combined to give the overall total. This is similar to the procedure for the decathlon in track and field athletics. However, in the modern pentathlon, starting times for the last event (cross country running before 2009; combined laser pistol shooting and cross-country running since 2009), are staggered so that the first person to cross the finish line is the winner. Before the last event competitors are ranked according to their score from the other disciplines and given start times accordingly, with the leader going first, and other starting times being dependent on the number of points already scored. The first person to cross the finish line, therefore, will be the overall points leader and win the pentathlon. This method of finishing the competition may have been inspired by similar formats in winter sports; the Gundersen method, for example, details a means by which a similar finish is achieved in the Nordic combinedThe fencing discipline uses the épée. The competition is a round-robin, meaning each competitor will face all the other competitors once. Each match lasts up to one minute; the first fencer to score a hit wins instantly. Double hits are not counted. If neither scores within one minute, they both lose the match.

  • The swimming discipline is a 200 m freestyle race. Until the 2000 Olympics, the distance was 300 metres. Competitors are seeded in heats according to their fastest time over the distance.
  • The riding discipline involves show jumping over a 350–450 m course with 12 to 15 obstacles. Competitors are paired with horses in a draw 20 minutes before the start of the event. Currently, this is the only Olympic sport that awards a medal to the participating horse.
  • Until 2009, the shooting discipline involved using a 4.5 mm (.177 cal) air pistol in the standing position from 10 metres distance at a stationary target. The format was that of the 10 metre air pistol competition: each competitor had 20 shots, with 40 seconds allowed for each shot. In 2009, the combined event, now referred to as the laser-run, was born. This involved a combination of the running and shooting events so that each competitor ran three 1000 m laps, each prefaced by hitting five targets with a pistol. Beginning with the Rancho Mirage World Cup (Feb 2011), the pistols changed to a laser instead of an actual projectile. There is a slight delay between the trigger pull and the laser firing, simulating the time it would take for a pellet to clear the muzzle.


The laser-run has been criticized as altering too radically the nature of the skills required. The New York Times asked whether the name ought to be changed to “tetrathlon” given that two of the five disciplines had been combined into a single event.

In the new format, in each of the four rounds of firing, athletes have to successfully shoot five targets, loading the laser gun after each shot. They resume running once they have five successful hits, or once the maximum shooting time of 50 seconds has expired. Misses are not penalised. The new format maintains the principle that the overall winner will be the first to cross the finish line.


  • Biathle is a continuous run-swim-run event that presents the opportunity for qualifying athletes to be selected to the SA Team representing the country at Biathle World Champs from the age of 7 years
  • Athletes run an age appropriate distance per a route, enter transition area for a shoe change, enter the swimming pool for a route swim or open water swim, enter the transition area again for a shoe change, and finish with the same age appropriate distance run.


  • Triathle is a continuous shoot-swim-run event that presents the opportunity for qualifying athletes to be selected to the SA Team representing the country at Triathle World Champs from the age of 7 years
  • Athletes run 20m to the laser shooting station, shoot 5 targets down or waits 50 seconds, enters the transition area for a shoe change, enters the swimming pool for a route swim or open water swim, enter the transition area again for a shoe change, and completes the first of FOUR laps by running an age appropriate distance on a route back to the shooting station for the next lap of four laps. Athletes cross the finish line on completion of the fourth lap’s run.


  • Laser Run is the development discipline name for the Modern Pentathlon and Tetrathlon’s event called Combined Event (which is shoot and run), however now with different distance and lap format.
  • Laser Run is a continuous shoot–run event that presents the opportunity for qualifying athletes to be selected to the SA Team representing the country at Laser Run World Champs from the age of 7 years.
  • Athletes run 20m to the laser shooting station, shoot 5 targets down or waits 50 seconds, then runs an age appropriate distance completing between 2 and 4 laps depending on the age group.


  • Tetrathlon is Modern Pentathlon but without horse jumping and is for athletes 18 and younger.
    • Horse jumping is only compulsory for ages 19 and up in age groups Juniors, Seniors and Masters.
    • Tetrathlon presents opportunity for all age groups to represent the Province at SA Champs, ages 17-18 Youth A World Champs and Junior Olympics.
    • Tetrathlon starts with a swim discipline, followed by the fencing discipline. Points are scored at these two disciplines that determine the staggered starting order for the combined event (also known as Laser Run).
    • Distances are all age appropriate


  • Modern Pentathlon is Tetrathlon but with horse jumping for ages 19 and up in age groups Juniors, Seniors and Masters.