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50 free Modern Pentathlon trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Modern pentathlon is the Olympic event Pierre de Coubertin built around the imagined day of a cavalry officer trapped behind enemy lines: ride a strange horse, fight with sword and pistol, swim a river and run home. It has been on the programme without a break since Stockholm 1912, where a young George S. Patton insisted on firing his service revolver and finished fifth, and it has spent the last three decades being reshaped into a 90-minute television product. These 50 questions cover the whole arc. The early Swedish dominance and the first civilian champion, András Balczó and Pavel Lednyov in the Soviet-Hungarian era, the 1976 épée wired with a hidden switch, Stephanie Cook winning the first women's title in Sydney, and the Tokyo 2020 show-jumping scandal that ended the riding discipline and brought in obstacle racing for Los Angeles 2028. There are rule questions too: the one-second-per-point handicap start, the five targets and 50-second limit at each shooting stop, and how a 1948 winning score of 16 was calculated. Easy questions stick to the five disciplines and the big names; the expert tier asks about UIPM presidents, vote margins and the Alexandria club where the first African champion trained. Every answer is cited to a page we checked.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Whose experience was the modern pentathlon designed to simulate?
A cavalry soldier behind enemy lines
Coubertin imagined an officer forced to ride an unfamiliar horse, fight with pistol and sword, swim and run back to his own lines.
Q 02In which year was the sport first held at the Olympic Games?
1912
It has been on the Summer Olympic programme continuously ever since.
Q 03Which city hosted the Games at which the sport made its Olympic debut?
Stockholm
Sweden entered 12 of the 32 competitors and swept the top four places.
Q 04Most sources credit which man with inventing the modern pentathlon?
Pierre de Coubertin
The founder of the modern Olympics lobbied from 1909 to get a pentathlon back on the programme.
Q 05Which discipline replaced equestrian show jumping in senior competition from 2025?
Obstacle course racing
The change was modelled partly on ninja-style TV courses and makes its Olympic debut at Los Angeles 2028.
Q 06Which fencing weapon is used in the sport's bouts?
Épée
The whole body is the target and a bout ends after a single hit.
Q 07How many hits end a bout in the fencing ranking round?
One
If neither fencer scores within a minute, both record a defeat.
Q 08Which body governs the sport internationally?
UIPM
The French acronym stands for Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne.
Q 09The governing body was founded in 1948 in which English town, during the London Games?
Sandhurst
Until then an IOC committee had run the sport directly.
Q 10Where was the UIPM headquartered in 2026?
Monaco
The federation counted 131 member nations in 2026.
Q 11A women's Olympic event was first held at which Games?
Sydney 2000
That gave the sport gender parity 24 years before the Olympics as a whole achieved it.
Q 12Who won the first women's Olympic gold in the sport?
Stephanie Cook
Running was her strongest discipline; she added world and European titles in 2001 and then retired.
Q 13Where did future general George S. Patton finish in the 1912 Olympic pentathlon?
Fifth
He was the only non-Swede in the top five and the only American in the field.
Which pistol did George S. Patton insist on using in the 1912 shooting event?
Q 21Jim Fox, who exposed the 1976 cheating, won team gold for which country?
Great Britain
His teammates were Danny Nightingale and Adrian Parker.
Q 22Which Olympics first staged the whole competition in a single day?
Atlanta 1996
Critics said the change traded the sport's steady character for a fast-paced show.
Q 23What name was coined in 2016 for the combined run-and-shoot finale?
Laser-run
It has since become a stand-alone sport with its own world championships.
Q 24What was the swimming distance before it was cut to 200 m for the 2000 Olympics?
.38 Colt Army Special
He argued some of his bullets had passed through earlier holes; the judges scored them as misses.
Q 15What distinction did Sweden's Lars Hall earn with his 1952 gold medal?
First civilian Olympic champion
Every previous winner had been a military officer.
Q 16Lars Hall won Olympic gold in 1952 and again in which year?
1956
He shared Sweden's Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal that year with skier Sixten Jernberg.
Q 17How many Olympic gold medals did András Balczó win?
Three
The Hungarian also took two silvers and was fourth in 1960, his only Olympic event without a medal.
Q 18Who holds the record of seven Olympic medals in the sport?
Pavel Lednyov
The Soviet athlete won two golds, two silvers and three bronzes across four Games from 1968 to 1980.
Q 19Which Soviet fencer was ejected from the 1976 Olympics for a rigged épée?
Boris Onishchenko
The Soviet Union had to scratch from the team event and Britain went on to win it.
Q 20How had the Soviet épée at the 1976 Games been illegally altered?
A hidden switch registered hits
Normally the tip must be depressed with 750 grams of force to complete the scoring circuit.
300 metres
The distance was trimmed again to 100 metres in 2026.
Q 25How far do athletes run in the final event under the 2024 format?
3,000 m
They stop four times to shoot along the way.
Q 26How much start delay does each point behind the leader cost in the final event?
One second
The handicap start means the first athlete across the line wins the whole competition.
Q 27How many targets must be hit at each shooting stop?
Five
Shots are unlimited, so a calm athlete can miss and still move on quickly.
Q 28What is the time limit at each shooting stop before an athlete may run on regardless?
50 seconds
There is no extra penalty for targets left unhit once the clock runs out.
Q 29Which venue hosted the Paris 2024 competition apart from the fencing ranking round?
Palace of Versailles
Only the ranking round was held at the Arena Paris Nord.
Q 30Egypt's Paris 2024 men's champion trained at which Alexandria club?
Smouha SC
He also carried Egypt's flag at the Paris opening ceremony.