(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
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I wanna see a Wii version of this extremely Olympic sport — the modern pentathalon:
To get it out of the way, yes, this is the event with the laser gun shooting. But it also includes: fencing, freestyle swimming and show jumping(!), all topped off with a nice little 3k run. You’re probably saying to yourself, “Self, none of these things go together and none of them are modern.” You’re right! (It’s also, with four events, not strictly a pentathlon. But we’ll get to that.)
The modern pentathlon isn’t modern because of its state-of-the art-events. It’s modern because it replaced the stodgy old pentathlon that was good enough for more than 2,500 years. In ancient Olympic times there was a pentathlon that comprised discus, javelin, long jumping, running and wrestling. After founding the modern Olympic games in 1896, Pierre de Coubertin felt the event needed to be updated too, so he tossed out those crusty disciplines and replaced them with exciting new ones, plus a horse. It was introduced with this thrilling narrative:
“A soldier is ordered to deliver a message on horseback. When the horse went down, he was forced to defend himself with both a sword and pistol. He completed his mission by swimming across a river and running a long distance through the woods.”
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(That’s right, “the woods.” That’s why the 3k run goes cross country.)
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Officially debuting in 1912, the modern pentathlon is the only event created specifically for the Olympic games…
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Apart from the boundless excess of human creativity, what’s on the agenda for the end of this politically aerobic weekend?
Southern Beale
Oh goodie, I can blogwhore my post about Olympic events I think need to get the boot. Oddly, I didn’t think to include Modern Pentathalon.
dmsilev
I’ve always felt combined events was the way to go. Consider, for example, the gymnast put. A team event featuring a repurposed shotputter and a pixie-like gymnast. Score includes distance, form, and of course sticking the landing. There’s also the possibility of skeet jumping, a combination of ski jumping and the biathlon….
AkaDad
Eat some boneless buffalo wings, watch The Newsroom, then play some online poker.
pseudonymous in nc
“Ride an unfamiliar horse” is the best bit of Modern Pentathlon: aka the donkey lottery, where you have 20 minutes to acquaint yourself with a steed that may be more comfortable pulling a cart than jumping fences.
There’s something charmingly retro/throwback about ModPent: it’s “modern” for 1900. The competitors are all genuine amateurs. It costs about $25 to run it at the Olympics, reusing other sports’ venues. Why get rid of it?
(Won’t spoil the closing ceremony for #NBCFail viewers, but like Warren Ellis, I thought it was a bit of a mess, following a long tradition of closing ceremonies that are generally… a bit of a mess. Call it a McKayla: nailed the opener, fell on arse during closer.)
cathyx
I’d like to see competitive eating become an olympic event.
raven
@pseudonymous in nc: Life is a bit of a mess. Lot’s of people said that about the opening too.
Nicole
@pseudonymous in nc: Is that true? They don’t know the horse ahead of time? Holy cow, that could make for the most entertaining athletic event ever!
I really enjoyed watching cross-country, now that the riders are all required to wear safety vests that automatically inflate if they come off the horse. Not only does it make the sport a bit less nail-biting to watch, but the fallen riders look hilarious as they waddle off the course.
Southern Beale
@dmsilev:
Mr. Beale and I were talking about that old SNL skit, the Spider Sabich Skeet Shoot. I guess you’d have to have been around in the ’70s to even get the joke these days but it got me thinking that a combined ski jump/shooting event would be AWESOME.
Dennis SGMM
My son tells me that Emergency Warning System just briefly took over the television with a tornado warning for Riverside County. The heavy weather is several miles to the East of us but there is one hella storm coming up from Baja. It’s 103 where I am, but at least we’re not getting tornadoes – yet.
Litlebritdifrnt
@cathyx:
I have been watching Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution” on BBC America and it is fascinating. This week he was talking to a single dad of two boys who was feeding his kids fast food eight or nine times a week. He sent the Dad out to get the fast food for the family and in the time it took him to get it, Jamiee had taught the boys to make dinner, chicken, tomato sauce, salad and steamed veggies. Dad spent $38.00 on the fast food, Jamie spent $21.00 on the dinner. Everyone agreed that the boys home made dinner was far superior to the fast food crap that Dad brought home.
If you have not checked out the show you should. It is amazing the lengths that Jamie will go to to battle the authorities to get kids eating good food.
NotMax
In relatively good news, first class moron and perennial candidate (and former Honolulu mayor) Mufi Hanneman got his posterior handed to him yet again in Saturday’s primary here, finishing with 34% of the vote in the race for the 2nd district House seat.
The person who won the D primary in a surprise victory (counter to polls – Hanneman had the backing of most of the traditional political powers that be and the old boy network here) has a lot of distasteful baggage that I won’t go into here, but the thought of Mufi Hanneman in Congress is enough to make my gorge rise.
Reading his campaign literature and watching Mufi’s campaign ads over the many years he has sought a variety of offices, they all can be parsed down to one sentence:
Vote for me, I’m tall.
I kid you not. That’s his main selling point.
Vividly recall watching local election coverage here some years ago (for another election he lost), with the reporter soberly explaining that Mufi would be late making a concession speech because, while he was at the right location, he had become lost in the parking lot.
The reporter actually appended “Well, it is an L-shaped parking lot.”
cathyx
@Litlebritdifrnt: I don’t get that channel. It amazes me how many people buy fast food on a regular basis. Weekly, daily, every meal.
NotMax
@pseudonymous in nc
Horse Goes Nuts During Equestrian Portion Of Modern Pentathlon, Turns It Into Wild Bronco Rodeo Competition
Citizen_X
Team Ninja would totally own that event.
And I’ll point out that any event that combines exertion/racing (thus, an elevated heart rate) and precision shooting? Still an invaluable modern combat skill.
pseudonymous in nc
@Nicole: Yep, just for the modern pentathlon. Although there were a couple of dodgy moments — more for the women than the men — the pool of horses this time was better than in Beijing, where there were a few that looked like they’d been ploughing fields.
prufrock
@Citizen_X:
The winter Olympics have that covered with the biathlon.
That event was also the scene of one of the best Bond chases ever (at least for me) in “For Your Eyes Only.”
RSA
Modern pentathlon… Cool. But I had to laugh at this, in the linked article:
I don’t know which Olympic sport is as simple as “Put the ball in the basket”; the rulebook for basketball is 80 pages long.
SiubhanDuinne
@pseudonymous in nc:
This reminds me of the orchestra back in the ’70s or so (the Bournemouth Sinfonietta? — I’ll have to look it up) wherein all the musicians were talented, trained and skilled performers — just not on the instruments they were given to play shortly before concerts :-)
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@pseudonymous in nc:
A horsey friend of mine calls it speed dating.
I’m fond of all the events of both seasons, but modern pentathlon and biathlon have to be my favorites.
Comrade Mary
@SiubhanDuinne: You are talking about my beloved Portsmouth Sinfonia. Here they are doing the William Tell Overture with Brian Eno playing clarinet and Michael Nyman on euphonium. It even sounds like a horsey song! (Thanks, Masked Man.)
burnspbesq
@Citizen_X:
Agreed. Next to hockey, biathlon is the coolest sport in the Winter Olympics. Ski your ass off for a couple of klicks, plink some targets with a rifle, rinse, repeat.
burnspbesq
My favorite moment of these Olympics: Lailaa Parker-Williams (age three) complaining that Mommy’s gold medal was too big, and she wanted a smaller one.
raven
OMG, the commie Imagine at the closing ceremomy!
Comrade Mary
@raven: Wait until you hear the filthy language from Eric Idle. CTV didn’t zap it on the live showing, but they may tonight.
raven
@Comrade Mary: You know they will.
Southern Beale
So, Paul Ryan was voted “Biggest Brown-Noser” in high schoo. For real.
scav
All I want for this evening is something that won’t make me dizzy, so I’ll put off attempting the Closing Ceremonies. Something nice soothing and logical is what’s called for. Something Sherlocky with clues and a body sounds about the speed. I need a Plot.
Soonergrunt
The original pentathlon has been replaced in the line up by the decathlon.
As one sports commentator noted, the idea behind the decathlon was apparently to take an athlete who couldn’t do any one event exceptionally well and have him do ten events not exceptionally well.
gogol's wife
@scav:
If you want some nice soothing brilliant dancing, Swing Time with Astaire and Rogers is on TCM two minutes from now.
burnspbesq
@scav:
Check you local PBS station; it may be showing a re-run of Inspector Lewis, which I find to be really good.
burnspbesq
@scav:
Check you local PBS station; it may be showing a re-run of Inspector Lewis, which I find to be really good.
SiubhanDuinne
@Comrade Mary: Yes!! Thank you! I knew “Bournemouth” didn’t sound quite right!
SiubhanDuinne
@Comrade Mary: Yes!! Thank you! I knew “Bournemouth” didn’t sound quite right!
scav
@gogol’s wife: Thanks, I’ll consider it. Low on the broken bodies of my enemies projection metric but I might just be able to swap soothing for logic. Maybe. I really need B to follow A, with a tidy little C toddling along behind. Even the thought of The Doctor is making me a little nauseous and he’s a first order distraction. @burnspbesq‘s Lewis another good option. Thanks to both.
Comrade Mary
@raven: Ha! Occasionally CTV surprises me. They didn’t cut out the word “shit” at all on the re-broadcast. Let’s see if some tight-asses complain.
This closing ceremony is rather uneven, but I am getting a kick out of the audience spontaneously singling along with various well-loved songs.
Suffern ACE
If it doesn’t place too much burden on Brazil, I wonder if they couldn’t move the next games up a few years and hold them next Summer.
Mike G
@Southern Beale:
Methinks Ryan was actively disliked at his school. All the other categories on that page are complimentary (best looking, class clown, etc.) except for his.
smintheus
Hilarious clip from 1995 of Paul Ryan predicting that the Medicare trust fund would go bankrupt by 2001.
The guy has been gunning for Medicare for a long, long time…and he never learns from past mistakes to temper his gloom and doom scenarios. I guess there’s no room for actual facts or thoughtfulness in the rush to mug Medicare.
Violet
@Suffern ACE:
Brazil has the World Cup before the Olympics. They’re really excited about that and will probably put on a great show.
Anya
@Southern Beale: I was like, totally ahead of buzzfeed. Noticed first time I checked his wikipedia. It’s fitting isn’t it?
smintheus
@Southern Beale: Yeah, but Obama hasn’t released his college transcript so both sides do it.
Seriously, that is freakin hilarious.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suffern ACE:
Romney won’t be doing anything next summer, and he does have Olympics experience…. This could be a win-win.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne:
That was so catty. I love it.
burnspbesq
That odd sound you heard earlier today was the managing partners of every large law firm in New Jersey heaving a huge sigh of relief. If Christie had capitulated to Romney’s demand that he resign as governor in order to be the Veep nominee, one of them would have had to hire him in November.
The other odd sound you heard earlier today was the people of New Jersey gnashing their teeth and rending their garments, because they won’t be rid of Christie for another 16 months.
burnspbesq
@Violet:
If they can get all the facilities built on time, which is looking like an increasingly iffy proposition.
ThresherK
Nothing about “swim(ming) a moat in a coat of heavy iron mail”, like Lancelot du Lac?