X Olympic Games 1932

Significant costs associated with transportation across the ocean, did not allow some countries to extend the number of representatives. This time there were 25 athletes from 10 countries (UK, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, USA, France, Sweden). Three Mexican pentathletes debuted in the tournament.

The main contenders for the title of the strongest were representatives of Sweden, the United States and Germany. The winner and the Olympic champion was a Swede Johan Oksenstierna. The silver medalist of the IX Olympic Games Bo Lindman, showed the best result in equestrian cross-country race, finished 2nd in fencing, 4th - in cross country track and field, 9^th - in swimming and 19th in shooting. Being a little bit behind the leader, he again came second. There are three Olympic starts with one gold and two silver medals on his account and also two wins in national competitions in pentathlon, and these were not the last achievements of the athlete in sports. At the next Games in Berlin, he was in the fencer team, which won the silver prize of the Olympics. IX Olympic champion Sven Tofelt took 4th place. The bronze medal went to the American Richard Mayo. His compatriots were not able to rise above the 5-th place in previous competitions. He became the first American pentathlete, who was awarded an Olympic medal.
Fifth and 6th places were taken by German athletes Willy Römer and Konrad Mirsh.

The special features of these events should be the exclusively heavy cavalry and the athletics track. Only five athletes in the equestrian cross-country results showed a result of less than 9min, and some finished at 14 and 25min. The Englishman Charles Legard, who was the winner in running, showed a result of 15 min and 12.2 s, and all-round winners had more than 16min. Recall that at the VII Olympic Games the best result was equal to 14 min 09.4 sec (Rune), and at the VIII Olympic Games it was 12min 40s (Lindman). But let's not blame athletes for the results. Being in the almamater of pentathlon – in the Museum of a Swedish town of Jonkoping, I saw photographs of these events. There were not only people with winners’ laurels, but the tragic picture of crying athletes bending over the fallen at the finish horses, spattered from head to foot, exhausted from the surge on the race track.

Sport and technical results on other types of pentathlon were less disappointing, although they could not compensate for lost glasses, nervous stress and turmoil.

The winner of the previous games S.Tofelt won in fencing, he also won the 1st place in swimming with the result of 4min 32.6 sec. Six pentathletes swam in faster than 5 minutes, DTOe finished in more than 7min. 16 athletes exceeded the level of 180 points in shooting, three showed less than 170 points. This type of program was won by the American Mayo with a score of 197 points, which allowed him to lead and stay in the first place after four parts of the program, but the 17^th place in running had dropped him on the third step of the podium. The all-around champion Oksenstierna was not the strongest in any kind of program, due to a stable performance in all types of the program, he came out as the winner. In the present system of scoring the winners list would have been as follows: T Ofelt - 3968 points Oksenstierna - 3954 points, Mayo - 3912 points. As you can see, with this scoring T Ofelt would have been the champion. It is no accident that the specialists were not satisfied with the system for determining the winner for the least amount of seats occupied in each of the five parts of competition, and they were looking for a more objective approach to determining the winners of the competition.

Before proceeding to the next Olympic Games, it is worth mentioning two events in the history of the modern pentathlon.

In 1934, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the National Federation of Modern Pentathlon in Stockholm, Sweden held its first international competition, which was eventually an unofficial championship of Europe. The representatives of six countries took part in the competition. The peculiarity of the tournament was the fact that the swimming part was carried out in the open sea, and it required additional skills of the participants. Participants struggled for the first place, as evidenced by the results of the density of the winners. So, the Swedish winner Tofelta’s amount of seats was 26, the runner-up compatriot Oksenstierna had 26.5, the German Birk had 27, the Hungarian Orban had 27.5, the Swede Boismana had 28.5, and the German Khandrikov finished with a result of 33. As you can see, the Swedish athletes are faced with serious competition from German and Hungarian athletes.

In 1935 a similar international meeting was organized in Budapest. There, the Swedes failed to climb the podium in the individual competitions for the first time in history. Representative of Germany Gotthard Khandrikov won the tournament, 2nd and 3rd places were taken by the Hungarians, Imre Petehazi and Nandor Orban. The best result in swimming had been achieved at these competitions - 4min 06.4 sec. The X Olympics Champion the Swede Oksenstierna finished the competition on fourth place. This was his last performance in international tournaments, but parting with pentathlon came later. From 1949 to 1960 he was a member of the Executive Committee of the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM).