Consequences of the First World War could not have affected the Olympic movement in general and in specific sports in particular. Pentathlon was no exception. Germany and its allies and Soviet Russia were not allowed to participate in the Games, for reasons dictated by the circumstances of the postwar period. At the same time teams of a number of countries did not participate in many types of competitions. For example, Canada and Spain were involved in only 7 types out of possible 23, Greece in 8, Brazil in 4, Japan in three, etc.
 
23 athletes from 8 countries participated in pentathlon(UK, Denmark, Italy, Norway, USA, France, Finland, Sweden). There were 4 athletes from Sweden, Denmark, Britain and France, 2 from USA, Finland and Norway, and 1 from Italy.
 
The first four places, as in previous Olympics, were won by the Swedish pentathletes, who had won four types of competition. Only in fencing the Frenchman  Mondylli managed to resist the Swedes and take the first place. The winner of the all-around was Gustav Durso. A well-known pentathlete in Sweden, the champion of the national championship, now became the second winner of the Olympic Games. He was second in fencing, swimming and track and field cross country, sixth in the equestrian and shooting competitions, which amounted to a record low number of seats - 18. The second prize winner was Eric de Laval, who won a horse cross country and shooting (the amount of seats 23), the third place went to Rune Gest, who excelled in swimming and running (total seats 27), Ang Beng was fifth in swimming and track and field cross country, tenth in fencing, and thirteenth in horse racing and shooting. By the total amount of seats he was fourth. The fifth and sixth places were taken by Marius Dane Eric Christensen, who was behind the leader at 29 seats, and the American Harold Reynerna, who was behind at 30 seats. Having won the gold, silver and bronze medals, the Swedish team gave his country the greatest number of SCP points again.
 
The representatives of Finland and Italy debuted at the Olympics. For the Italian it was unsuccessful, because he was the penultimate. The Finn Hagelbergu turned out to be more fortunate, and took the 7th place, and was ahead of sufficiently strong contenders. Subsequently, the Finnish pentathletes slowly, but surely climbed up the standings, winning both personal and team prizes.