The Century-long Changing Rules Of Modern Pentathlon And The Evolution Of Element Mix In Training Highly Qualified Pentathletes

In 1912, modern Pentathlon was established as a sport in the fifth summer Olympic Games held in Stockholm. Since then, it has been retained as a sport in Olympics for over 100 years. Guided by the changing competition rules in Olympic Games which aimed at promoting sports development, modern pentathlon underwent great changes. In line with the development needs of modern Olympic Games and under the guidance by International Modern Pentathlon and Biathlon Union(UIPMB), the Seoul summer Olympic Games held in 1988, in particular, witnessed higher changing frequency, greater changes and more exacting requirement of the competition rules. For instance, changes include shortened competition duration, reshuffled event order, adjusted scoring rules, enhanced event rules and the adopted combination of shooting and cross country running. The changing rules will affect people’s confidence in winning the competition, especially their understanding about what is the corresponding highly-geared training. Frequent changes in competition rules also heighten the level of difficulty in mastering the underlying laws in training the pentathletes in an efficient, comprehensive and systematic manner, in improving the efficiency and efficacy of the training, and in training the pentathletes and the potential pentathletes for the future Olympic Games in the long-run. Therefore, sorting out the evolution of elements in training highly-qualified pentathletes under the changing rules is of great theoretical and practical significance.Therefore, the author took “the century-long changing rules of modern pentathlon and the evolution of element mix in training highly qualified pentathletes” as his field of research. By utilizing literature review, expert consultation, filed research, questionnaire and survey, statics and logical analysis, the paper straightened out the general feature, contents and causes of the changing rules over past century, researched and analyzed the impact of changing rules on the events development and training. Therefore, it summarized the experience of highly qualified pentathletes in training and participating in the sports and offered theoretical consideration on the coming participation and training of the events. Research finding could be summarized as follows:1. Featured as the standard, guidance, operation-orientedness, competition rules exerted great impact on the organization of event, participation and training of pentathletes. With the development of competitive events, relevant rules will be adjusted or changed periodically. Given the diversity of the combination of modern pentathlon and the complexity of its organization, it witnessed greater frequency and more amendment to its rules when compared with other competitive events.2. Promoting the “integration” of modern pentathlon, coordinating the “balanced development” of five events and improving the “popularization” level is the general feature of the evolution of its rules.3. On the whole, the rules take an initiative in reforming, adjusting and changing four aspects of the rules, namely timing system, competition duration, events order and rules for events. Changes in the rules of events are reflected in areas such as scoring standard and scoring method, adjustment in specifications of competition arena and equipment, revision and improvement in rules of events, the penalty items and standard. They are initiative changes made out of the needs of social developments. Meanwhile, they render modern pentathlon more speculation-worthy, more oriented towards human and horse, more standardized and thus more vibrant.4. The cause of change and motivation can first be traced back to the Olympic spirits “Higher, Quicker, Stronger”. As the strategic adjustment is in line with the “streamlining plan” of the Olympic and the catering needs for the sustainable development of the sport, changing rules play a vital rule in manifesting humanism and spreading the green Olympics.5. Guided through the evolution of competition rules, training of modern pentathlon underwent four phases, namely leading role of each event in training, standard training,integrated training of each event, specialized training of modern pentathlon. Those inter-related phases are linked by the natural law underlying the development of the sport, which altogether reflects the progress in people’s understanding gained from social practices about the sport. Evolution of the elements is a significant guidance for people’s understanding about pentathlon training in the future.6. Changes in the pentathlon’s rule driven forward both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative changes refer to the self-improvement and development of incumbent rules, which exert mild impact on the sport and offer a guarantee for people’s gradual understanding of and adjustment to the sport. Qualitative changes, however, refer to the substitution of old rules with new ones, which would cause explicit changes to the feature of the sport. Qualitative changes exert significant impact on the competition outcome, and sometimes will even alter the results of modern pentathlon and the international landscape of the sport.7. The evolution sets a rigid threshold on the participation of pentathletes as well as the clearly-defined requirement on the training. Meanwhile, the structure of scoring elements, organization of training will undergo significant changes correspondently. In different phases of the evolution, competition rules exert salient impression on the contents, methodology, workload, arrangement and organization of the training.8. The frequently changing process exerts significant impact on the contents, methodology, workload, and organization of the training. They are mainly reflected on following aspects: 1) training for the mainstream competence to be enhanced more often than not underwent structural changes because of the changing rules; 2) different methods in pentathlete training generally witnessed variation in its frequency; 3) workload in the training made adjustment accordingly; 4) annual training arrangement transitioned from weekly training and biweekly training to multi-weekly training, and modules dedicated to enhancing competence on certain events were gradually integrated in the arrangement.9. Following six points could be extracted from the practice of high-level athletes in modern pentathlon: 1) Fully utilizing opportunities offered by the changes of rules; 2) Sticking to the guiding principle – the training should be multi-weekly, practical, well-balanced with stamina enhancement as it core and technique mastery as its crux; 3) Reasonably allocating and comprehensively utilizing resources in the training; 4) Mastering the laws in the training of specific events and keeping a clear mind of the development trend; 5) Designing a well-planned arrangement and detailed organization arrangement before the competition so as to reduce error frequency; 6) Attaching priority to echelon building so as to ensure smooth transition between generations of pentathletes.10. More reflections should be made upon following aspects for the 2016 Olympic Games: 1) Keeping an eye on the changes of the rule and conducting in-depth study of the rules; 2) Fumbling out the major direction for breaking through hindering obstacles in training and participation; 3) Designing and planning the training in a scientific manner and integrating quality training resources to improve the training quality; 4)Watching closely the development trend and aligning training innovation with times; 5) Paying great effort in the preparation before the sport, especially the psychological preparation of pentathletes.