Modern Pentathlon
Who am I?
Hi, My name is Kayla Bongers.
I'm an aspiring Modern Pentathlete from Western Australia, Perth, aiming for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics and the Brisbane 2032 Olympics.
As a little tacker, I competed in Swimming, Running, Little Athletics and Triathlon. In 2019, I was introduced to fencing in a beginners course with my Dad. The rest followed after that, adding on the laser shooting, and now recently OCR.
In 2022, I attended Sports Plus Perth, and discovered that faith can have a lot to do with sport, and have since been striving to use sport as a median to share my faith.
In 2021-2022 I took a break from sport, to focus on my last year of school. But now it's full steam ahead!
What is Modern Pentathlon?
Some Info taken from Modern Pentathlon Australia Website
Swimming
The swimming event is a freestyle race over 200m with athletes seeded in heats according to their personal best time.
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A time of 2:30 earns 1000 Pentathlon points
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Every 0.33 seconds is worth +/- 4 points and thus the value of each swimming second is worth 12 points.
Penalties: Forty point penalties are incurred for:
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a false start
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failing to touch the wall at the end of a lap, or
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leaving the pool in an incorrect manner as stipulated in the rules.
Fencing
Fencing is a series of one-touch bouts with epée swords. The fencing event of Modern Pentathlon is a round-robin tournament, with a single touch deciding each match. Plus a bonus point ranking round at major championships.
Each competitor has a bout against every other competitor. Bouts last for one minute, the winner being the first fencer to score a hit. If neither scores a hit, both competitors register a defeat, a double hit doesn’t count.
Point penalties are awarded for a variety of infringements including
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hitting the epée on anything other then the opponent to register to a hit
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crossing the boundary line with both feet or to avoid a hit,
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dangerous play, and
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when a fencer turns their back on the opponent.
The fencing competition is held on pistes, measuring 14m long and between 1.5m and 2m wide, in an indoor arena.
Obstacle Course Racing
This is done over either a 60 meter or 100 meter course, consisting of 8-10 obstacles, where two athletes race each other for time. The obstacles can vary from competition, but can include:
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Rings
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Monkey Bars
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Overs, Unders, Throughs
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Balance beam
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Steps
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Giant Spin Wheel, Small Spin Wheels
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Warped Wall
Points are allocated on time.
Laser Run
Laser run consists of running and laser shooting.
Athletes run 600 meters, before entering the shooting area. The laser pistols are harmless, and only emit a low level laser beam.
Athletes have to get 5 shots in the small black circle on a target located 10 meters away. They have 50 seconds to get the 5 shots. They can take as many shots as they like.
If this is achieved within the 50 seconds, athlete's can start running the next 600 meters. This is repeated another 4 times. The first athlete to cross the finish line wins!
