Illustration photo – Modern pentathletes at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro during the swimming part.
Cairo – A new season for modern pentathletes will begin on Monday with the World Cup race in Cairo, where seven Czech representatives will be presented. It will offer three options for direct qualification for the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024.
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In the Egyptian metropolis, Jan Kuf, Ondřej Polívka, Ondřej Svěchota and Martin Vlach, who dominated the poll for the best Czech pentathlete three times in a row, will perform. Among the women, Karolína Křenková, Veronika Novotná and seventeen-year-old debutant Lucie Hlaváčková will compete.
“If everything goes as it should, probably few people will complete the entire series. The races are extremely tight on the calendar, so it would be advisable to skip one of them and plan a quality training block instead. Everything depends on the development of the season,” said coach of the Czech pentathletes Jakub Kučera in a press release.
The winners of the June World Cup finals in Ankara and all individual medalists from the August World Championships in Bath qualify for the Paris Olympics. The other eight places for each category will come from the European Games.
“If the winner of the previous cup final is in that eight, the ninth will also meet the conditions for participation in the Olympics. For each national federation, a maximum of one can meet the criteria in each category,” said Kučera.
Other participants will be determined by the world ranking. “Currently, there are at least six places for competitors who will not be directly qualified yet. But I think realistically there will be nine to ten places in each category,” stated Kučera. The last direct qualification will be offered by the World Championships in 2024.
For the first time, modern pentathletes will present themselves at the European Games, which will take place in Krakow at the turn of June and July. “As far as the format of the competition is concerned, the European Games will not be too different for us from, for example, the European Championships. The only difference is the absence of women's and men's relays and the inclusion of a mixed relay in the middle of the competition program,” Kučera declared.
It is still not certain whether the modern pentathlon will be included in the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. A decision could be made on March 28 at the meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee.
