Not Quite Modern Enough, Pentathlon May Vanish

At a time when nostalgia surrounding the Olympics is nearing an all-time high--100 years old, 100 days away--one of the oldest sports is in danger of being dropped from the Games because it isn’t modern enough.

Modern pentathlon, an Olympic sport since 1912--when George Patton finished fifth--might be replaced after this summer by the triathlon.

“In the minds of some IOC members, that is the idea,” Anita DeFrantz , International Olympic Committee member, said Tuesday. “But I wouldn’t say at this moment that it’s a done deal at all.”

Several pentathletes met with IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch during the Barcelona Olympics and asked how they could save their sport.

“He said they would have to modernize it,” DeFrantz said.

It was modern about 100 years ago, when the father of the modern Olympics, French Baron Pierre de Coubertin, invented it.

The sport comprises running, swimming, horseback riding, shooting and fencing, supposedly the five disciplines a soldier had to master in order to be a courier in Napoleon’s army.

Since 1992, changes have been made to make the sport more palatable for television. But the IOC does not seem impressed.

Triathlon already is one of two sports--along with taekwondo--added for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, but it won’t necessarily be on the program afterward unless the IOC adopts it.

FACTOID

There are about 7,000 volunteers scheduled to work in sports-specific jobs during the Olympics this summer and about 45,000 volunteers expected overall.

NEWSMAKER

Kim Rhode was 2 weeks old when her parents took her on that first hunting trip, one she obviously doesn’t remember but smiles about now. “It just gives you a clue how long it’s [hunting] been in my family,” Rhode said.

At 16, Rhode, a junior at Arroyo High in El Monte, will be one of the youngest U.S. Olympian shooters ever when she competes this summer in women’s double-trap shooting, a new event in Atlanta involving two targets thrown simultaneously.

Rhode can hit targets propelled out of an underground bunker at speeds of 70 mph. Rhode actually had the top women’s score at the 1995 Pan American Games but did not medal because she was an alternate. Among her titles is the world American skeet, which she won at 13.

“I hunted for quite a while, then began with little matches in rifle and progressed to shotgun and American skeet international,” said Rhode, who trains at Pachmayr International Shooting Park in El Monte.

“Just today, I was looking through some old family pictures and I ran across some news clipping in the L.A. Times about my grandpa in 1942 who used to raise hound dogs here locally, so I guess this all goes back a long time.”

LAUREL WREATH

Don’t count out Carl Lewis. Approaching his 35th birthday, he upset Jon Drummond in the 100 meters in the Texas Relays on Saturday with a wind-aided time of 10.10.

THORN WREATH

The Associated Press reported this week that the bid committee for the 2004 Summer Olympics from San Juan, Puerto Rico, was irate over Samaranch’s positive comments about the possibility of those Games going to Athens, Greece. The Puerto Ricans have been around the process long enough to know that Samaranch tells every bid city what it wants to hear, until he opens the envelope after the IOC vote.

THIS WEEK

In the 100th Boston Marathon on Monday, Kenya’s Cosmas Ndeti and Germany’s Uta Pippig can make history. Ndeti could become the first man to win four in a row, and Pippig could be the first woman to officially win three consecutive times.

Olympic Scene Notes

Dominique Dawes is expected to be the dominant American at the individual event gymnastics World Championships in San Juan, which begin Monday. Dawes has battled injuries and laid low since winning the national championship in 1994 but now appears to be in top form. . . . . After losing seven female swimmers, including two world champions, to drug suspensions, there was a question whether the Chinese would be able to rebound in time for the Olympics. The answer came last week in the Chinese national championships in Tinjin, where four teenagers dominated. The best was Chen Yan, the 15-year-old who won four events--the 200-, 400- and 800-meter freestyles and 400 individual medley--and finished third in another--the 200 IM. . . . Add Jeff Laynes, formerly of USC, to the contenders for berths in the sprints on the U.S. track and field team. His time of 10.01 in the 100 meters Saturday in Tempe, Ariz., made him the 10th-fastest performer in U.S. history. . . . More than 200 rowers begin competition for 48 spots on the U.S. Olympic team in trials starting today on Lake Lanier in Gainesville, Ga.

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Times staff writer Randy Harvey contributed to this story.