Modern Pentathlon at the 2024 Summer Olympics

Few sports can say they had a more difficult Olympiad than modern pentathlon between the Tokyo and Paris Olympic Games. The actions of coach Kim Raisner at Tokyo 2020, in punching the mount of her charge Annika Schleu-Zillekens, gained considerable negative publicity towards the sport and particularly its equestrian portion. By 2024, it was agreed to replace show jumping with an obstacle racing portion, although this was not universally popular with the more successful of the current competitors.

A growing unhappiness with the way the sport was being run led to the formation of an organization called “Pentathlon United”, which opposed many of the ideas the UIPM and its long serving President Klaus Schormann sought to bring to the sport.

Apart from the fencing, which was held at the Paris Nord Villepinte centre, the 2024 Olympic tournament was held in the grounds of the historic Palace of Versailles, which also hosted the equestrian events.

One innovation was the introduction of a semi-final phase which eliminated half the competitors. The action actually began with a round-robin fencing event, which counted as part of both the semi-finals and the final.

The men’s event saw a first ever gold medal for the continent of Africa, as Ahmed El-Gendy led from start to finish. His victory was Egypt’s only Olympic title of Paris 2024. Silver medalist Taishu Sato became Japan’s first Olympic medalist in the sport. The women’s title went to Hungary, the sport’s most successful country, for the first time since 2004, with Michelle Gulyás winning her country’s 10th Olympic title.