| Military pentathlon | |
| Union: | Conseil International du Sport Militaire |
| First: | French occupation zone, Germany, 1947 |
| Country/Region: | Worldwide |
| Contact: | No |
| Mgender: | No |
| Category: | Multisport |
| Olympic: | No |
| Iwga: | 1997 (invitational) |
The Military Pentathlon is a multisport. It resembles the modern pentathlon but updated to skills used by the modern military.
The modern pentathlon was originally designed to include the ideal skills of a soldier of the time. By the Second World War, some of those skills (fencing and horse riding) were irrelevant to the modern soldier.
In 1946 a French officer, Captain Henri Debrus (later promoted Colonel and President of the Conseil International du Sport Militaire (CISM)) conceived the idea of organising a sports competition reserved exclusively for the army. It was during discussions held at Frankfurt am Main which led to the setting up of the Allied Forces Sports Council, that his attention was drawn to an original military physical training technique used, at that time, by the Netherlands airborne units. After being dropped over a given zone, parachutists had to travel a distance of twenty kilometres from the dropping point, crossing over a number of obstacles and performing combat operations (small arms fire and grenade throwing).
Captain Debrus took the Dutch method as a guide, eliminated the parachute jump and modified the other tests in order to form a system, which he thought, would constitute an ideal way of ground training. A first trial competition organised by himself was held at the Military Physical Training Centre, at Freiburg, in the French occupation zone in Germany, in August 1947. Only Belgian, Dutch, and French teams took part in the competition.
Since 1950, annual world championships have been held. The sport has grown in popularity, and now over 30 countries participate. The sport's governing body, the International Military Sports Council (CISM), now also organise pentathlons aimed at naval and air force personnel.
At a distance of 200 metres, competitors are tested separately for precision (10 shots in 10 minutes) and rapid-fire (10 shots in one minute) shooting.
Competitors navigate a 500-metre obstacle course with 20 obstacles.
Competitors must swim a distance of 50 metres, including four obstacles.
Competitors are tested separately for precision and distance throwing. In the precision test, competitors throw 16 projectiles (inactive grenades) at targets on the ground at varying distances.
Competitors undertake an 8 km cross country run.
The shooting discipline consists of sighting shots and competition shooting.
The shooting competition consists of:
The length of the course is 500 metres and consists of 20 standardised obstacles.
The contest is to be held on one or several lanes, provided that all lanes are identical. Each competitor must follow his own lane.
Obstacles: the obstacles are constructed and placed on the track. Obstacles of men's event consist of:
In the women's event, the rope ladder, sloping wall with rope, four steps of beams and vertical ladder are not negotiated.
50 metres with four obstacles.[1]
The weight of projectiles is 575 grams (weight tolerance +/- 25 grams) for men and 375 grams (weight tolerance +/- 25 grams) for women.
Throwing consists of precision throwing at distances of 20, 25, 30 and 35 metres (five metres shorter for each target for females). The targets consist of an inner circle with radius of one metre, and an outer circle with radius of two metres. The time allotted for precision throwing is three minutes, 16 projectiles with four inactive grenades on each target.
Distance throwing is also included, where competitors throw three grenades in two minutes. Only the longest throw will count toward the score, which combines points for both distance and precision.
The cross-country running is the last event and for men the distance is 8000m and for women the distance is 4000m.[1]
https://www.military-pentathlon.info/cms/