The modern pentathlon (an event no one knows anything about) took place over the weekend. To summarize, it includes pistol shooting, fencing, 200m swim, show jumping and a 3km run. Due to lack of popularity, it is possible that this may have been the last time it will be held at the Olympics.
I don’t want to see the modern pentathlon removed, and neither do you. In an effort to keep it around so that our children and our children’s children can enjoy five-sport greatness, I’m proposing that we modernize the modern pentathlon. Enter THE POST-MODERN PENTATHLON.
How It Works
We’ve got 10 events (listed below). A 5k run is always last (more on that later), but the other 4 slots are chosen from 9 available events, which makes it awesome because it makes each edition of the PMP (post-modern pentathlon) slightly different and athletes have to be well-rounded and train for all 10. The events are chosen the day of the pentathlon by the judges. They can throw them in a hat and pick, or maybe spin a wheel (YES, A WHEEL):
The Events
Open to suggestions on these, so if you have any ideas, hit me up on Twitter.
100m Race
Why: To me, this one is a no-brainer. “Who can run the fastest?” is a question we never get tired of having answered.
BMX Race
Why: Have you seen this course? It’s insane and the wrecks are awesome.
Dressage (JUST KIDDING)
Badminton
Why: I’m talking about the crazy-intense Olympic badminton, not company picnic badminton. We’ll do everything we can to prevent tanking.
Pole Vault
Why: Because watching the pole vault will be much more exciting when the competitors have only had a 10th of the training time.
Skeet Shooting
Why: The current pentathlon uses laser pistols for some reason. If they wanted to play laser tag, they wouldn’t be at the olympics. Let’s get out the real guns and have some fun.
Boxing
Why: Fighting is always a good way to settle things and is a popular sport now a days, and people can just go into the boxing round and practice this sport all they want.
Trapoline
Why: This sport did not get nearly enough coverage in 2012. I remember waking up one morning, seeing a bunch of tweets about how awesome it was, and that was it. Here’s a video of the gold medalist, the inimitable Dong Dong (sorry about the quality, the IOC YouTube nazis are in full force):
Archery
Why: Who doesn’t like shooting a bow and arrow? Archery will make all of your Lord of the Rings fantasies come true. The only thing I don’t like is all the complicated compound bows. When I’m in charge, the competitors will get one of these no-nonsense bows.
200m Freestyle Swim
Why: Gotta have at least one swimming event since there are about 9000 at the Olympics. I don’t like all the fancy strokes and relays. You swim from here to there; the first one to finish wins.
5k Run
Why: This one is always last. We’ll stagger the starting times based on the scoring from the previous events and the first person to cross the finish line gets the gold. Got to love the drama of exhausted athletes representing their countries proudly by vomiting at the finish line.
Wrap-up
So there you have it, the post-modern pentathlon. BMX-100m-Pole-Vault-Table-Tennis? FANTASTIC. Boxing-Badminton-Skeet-Shooting-Trampoline? EVEN BETTER. Throw in a 5k finale and you’ve go the next great olympic event. Petition your local olympic committee and let’s join together to make this thing happen.
Dude, I think the pentathlons would get a serious upgrade with these events. But I also like the stability and tradition in the events now. So here’s an idea to mull over: replace that horse ballet crap (Dressage) and put in full power horse racing, Kentucky Derby style. or you can claim the BMX is modern horse riding, which has better crashes than when one guy just falls off his horse. Oh, and they should all do the same events, so if you spin a wheel of fortune, everyone does that. Or just make one constant itinerary and keep it.