U.S. pentathlon team is named
USA Pentathlon today announced its final roster for the Beijing Games.
Head coach Janusz Peciak is back for his sixth straight Olympic Games.
Before he became the head coach, Peciak won the gold medal in the pentathlon for his home country of Poland at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. He also competed in the 1972 and 1980 Olympic Games.
Michael Cintas of Rancho Mirage will serve as the riding coach for the team.
Representing the U.S. in the pentathlon (which involves five sports -- shooting, fencing, riding, swimming and running) will be these four athletes:
Margaux Isaksen (Fayetteville, Ark./Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Sheila Taormina (Livonia, Mich.) in the women's field, and Eli Bremer (Monument, Colo./Colorado Springs, Colo./U.S. Air Force) and Sam Sacksen (Somerset, Pa./Colorado Springs, Colo.) in the men's field.
-- Debbie Goffa
Photo: Sam Sacksen jumps an obstacle during the riding discipline of the men's relay of the Modern Pentathlon World Championships in Budapest last month. He placed 54th but had done well enough in other competitions to be invited to the Olympic team. Imre Foeldi / EPA
What is Modern Pentathlon?
Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the modern pentathlon believing the event would test a man's/woman's moral qualities as much as his physical resources and skills, thereby producing the ideal, complete athlete.
The modern pentathlon is an Olympic sport which consists of competition in five events in one gruelling day.
Competitors earn points for their performances in each of the five disciplines: pistol shooting, epee fencing, swimming, riding (equestrian show jumping) and cross-country running.
The total points scored in the first four events determine the starting order for the final event, turning the cross-country running into a handicap event.
The leading competitor sets off first and the intervals between that competitor and those who follow is determined by the points difference between them.
Because of this handicapping system, the first three competitors to cross the line at the end of the run fill the gold, silver and bronze medal positions.
Modern pentathlon is a true representation of the Olympic movement. The 5 Olympic rings are reflected in modern pentathlon's 5 events and participation from all 5 continents.
It is a true sport of the Olympic Games, created by the founder of the Modern Games Pierre de Coubertin and reflecting the ideals embodied by the Olympic movement. Modern pentathlon has to remain an indefatigable part of it.
Marek Bajan
3 times Champion of Poland in Modern Pentathlon, coach, participant in the Olympic Games in Moscow (1980).
Born on 29 July, 1956, in Krasnik Fabryczny, Poland, in the intelligentsia family of Mieczyslaw and Krystyna (maiden name Kowal), an alumnus of Mikolaj Rey High School (1975) and Academy of Physical Education (1985) where he studied physical education and got an MA degree in sports. A pentathlon competitor (178 cm, 68 kg), a trainee in Lotnik Warszawa club (1973-1975) coached by Boleslaw Bogdan; later on in his sporting career a representative of one of the capital’s sporting clubs Legia (since 1976) and of another one – Lumel – from Zielona Gora (since 1981). He was said to be an exceptionally hard-working sportsman. A very good horse-rider, fencer and swimmer. Champion of Poland (1978, 1979, 1981).
He debuted on the international arena during the junior World Championships in San Antonio, USA (1977), where he took 15th place individually and 5th as a team.
An Olympic Games in Moscow 18th place (1980). When he finished his sporting career he took to coaching – first in fencing only, then in women’s pentathlon in Berlin, Germany.
Married to Anna Stein (also a pentathlon Champion); father to 3 children: Agnieszka (born 1982), Michal (1990) and Filip (1993).
Posted by: Lech Alex Bajan Washington DC | July 21, 2008 at 12:56 PM