Wednesday 17 November 2010

My last rant: new amazing ideas for modern pentathlon

Next big step for modern pentathlon is becoming shorter. Less pentathletes in the finals and a quicker competition. You can whine, but the leaders in charge know what's better for the sport. They did it to laser shooting, they can do it again. Even after the introduction of the one day format several years ago, it still lasts too much. All day long competition? Boring! People want fast food, fast sex, fast cars, no waste of time. Time is money. How to sell modern pentathlon if it doesn't become more atractive? Another aspect to be pointed out is that pentathletes also get too tired at the end of the day and a hidden health problem can show up and make a tragedy. Then there is more than one reason for the change, now it must be inevitable. So modern pentathlon has to be saved. It must be shortened. That's the next key for success. Modern pentathlon will become a very popular sport!

First of all, there are too many competitors. It could be reduced in the finals from 36 to, let's say, ten. Maybe eight is better. I don't know. An expensive consultant must be hired in order to advice if 10 -that's a multiple of 5, a number intrinsically linked to the sport-, or 8 - a multiple of 4, like the old cursed giant draw size (36), also fitting better for swimming because of the number of lanes (would allow one heat only) - is the best choice for the sport. Let's get rid of this population that fight for the current intermediary and bottom positions and this way make the standings more easy to understand and to follow during the competition.

Fencing is hard to follow. Many competitors dueling at the same time; it's quite difficult to recognize who's behind the masks, you have to check their names at their backs. By the way, the dress is another important issue for the future of the sport that I will talk about later in this post. With the smaller groups, they could even add an amazing time of 10 or 15 seconds to every duel! Very fair. Less ties. Of course, only if we draw the 10 or eight competitors into two groups. This "one has to face everyone else" is past. By previous results in fencing (50%) and pentathlon ranking (50%) it could be possible to make the seeds and draw two groups.

In swimming a shorter course would make the swimming much more exciting. 50 metres are enough and make it closer. And no need of Olympic swimming pool. In order to bring more audience, men and women should wear sexy swimsuits (also in combined event, that allow it).

Riding takes too many time. We need a mass start. Something like a horse race. No show jump. It's all about being faster. That also could bring gambling to the sport. Betting companies sponsor millionaire football teams. We need some mafia in the sport, that's the modern sport.

Combined event should be shortened too, by smaller distances to run and less shoot bounds. Let's say 1000 metres and 2 rounds of 4 shoots (at the start and at 500m). With less pentathletes and with the changes in previous disciplines, the handicap should be smaller. It would be even more exciting. Woohoo!

Another possibility is keeping the combined event trend. The sport would be renamed "co-combined events". First combined: fencing+riding. Like in medieval duels. Second and final combined: swim + run + shoot. The format would be the summer biathlon (swimming+ running) and the shooting.

OK, a serious note now: I'm not against changes. The way the most recent change to the sport happened, though, sounds arbitrary. The change would eventually happen, smoothly, and the board used a prerogative to overturn the Congress decision. So it's not like a visionary and revolutionary executive board against a conservative or reactionary team of member delegations or vice-versa. An agreement was sealed and later it was overruled. I can picture it wasn't an easy task for the executive board to make this decision. They probably balanced the political costs and the commitments they made before the Congress (and the last sounds wrong). I could make an absurd comparison here with a rapist that asks the victim before the crime if s/he wants it or not, and after the answer no, says/thinks things like "when they say no, they mean yes" or "I don't care, I just want to do it, if not for good, for evil will". If it's an absurd and a not honest comparison, in the other hand it's worrying that I could draw this frivolous parallel. I really hope UIPM regrets from the authoritarian decision and respects the Congress decision. If not, I can just hope it won't be a disaster - and probably won't be, but the turn of events surely was. Like I said in the title, this was my last rant, let's return to the normal (unless something new happens). I actually like this drama, haha.

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