Disciplines 

Qualification tournaments take place during the 18 months prior to the Olympics. Through competitions such as the World Cup Series, World Championships and continental championships, 36 men and 36 women qualify. Men and women athletes compete in all five sports within a single day. The addition of each individual score gained by the athlete determines his or her final standing. The winner is the one with the highest overall score. The disciplines of the Modern pentathlon in the finals, as well as at the Olympic Games, are held in the following order:  fencing, swimming, riding and the combined event (shooting and cross country running)

Fencing:

Athletes fence all other competitors once using electric epees. Bouts are fenced for one hit and last a maximum of one minute. Double hits are annulled. If neither fencer has scored a hit within the time limit, a double defeat will be recorded.

Swimming:

A 200m freestyle swim, where the athletes are seeded in heats according their personal best times. A time of 2 minutes 30 seconds equates to 1000 pentathlon points.

Riding:

Athletes ride unfamiliar horses over a series of 12 show-jumping obstacles. The leading athlete after the previous disciplines draws their horse by lot. On the basis of this draw, the other horses (which have been previously numbered) are allocated to the other competitors. The athletes have just 20 minutes in the warm-up arena over five practice jumps before coming out to compete.

Combined event (running and shooting):

The climax to the competition. The combined event begins with a handicapped start, calculated on the basis of the results after the previous events. It is a two discipline event, where athletes run a total distance of 3000m. The run is interspersed by shooting three sets of 5 electronic targets. Only after having hit 5 targets with an unlimited number of shots OR after a time of 1 minute 10 seconds can the competitor start from the firing point to perform each running leg of 1000m. The first person to cross the line is the winner. A time of 12 minutes 30 seconds equates to 2000 pentathlon points.

Swimming

• Swimming suit
• Swimming cap
• Protective eye goggles (to protect the eyes of the swimmers from the chlorine and to improve vision)

Riding

• Riding uniform: riding breeches, shirt, riding-coat, boots
• Crash helmet / head guard
• Riding stick (whip)

Fencing

• Fencing uniform for épée
• Fencing glove
• Protective Mask
• Electrical sword blade (épée)

Combined (shooting and Running)

• Laser pistol
• Running clothing on which it is compulsory to write the athlete's name and (in international events) the name of his/her country.

The Rules for Modern Pentathlon are published annually by the International Federation, UIPM. These rules are primarily aimed at international events and can be downloaded here.

Pentathlon GB publishes its own rules for competitions held in GB which can be downloaded from the resources page. These follow closely the rules of the UIPM but which do have some variations to take account of local circumstances and different competition formats, such as biathlon, triathlon and tetrathlon.

These rules are reviewed each year. Separate rules are published for the Schools' Biathlon competition series. Modern Pentathlon is based on a system of scoring pentathlon points depending on the score or time that you record in each discipline. For each discipline there is a target time or score which is equivalent to 1000 pentathlon points.

If you do better (or worse) than that target score you accumulate more (or fewer) pentathlon points. What the target times and scores are depends on your age group. The rules are very detailed and competitors should make themselves familiar with them before they compete. Modern Pentathlon rules differ in significant ways from the rules for their separate sports so it is important that you read and understand the rules.