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In disbelief Russian world champion wins men's modern pentathlonLatest: Sunday October 08, 2000 05:11 PM
SYDNEY, Australia (CNNSI.com) -- Russian Dmitry Svatkovsky captured the gold medal in the men's modern pentathlon while the United States came up short in its bid to win its first medal in the event since 1960. For a while it looked like Americans Velizar Iliev and Chad Senior both might medal, but in the end, they were left watching. Svatkovsky crossed the finish line of the 3-kilometer run, raised his arms in triumph and then dropped to his knees, touching his head to the ground in disbelief that he'd won the gold. Gabor Balogh of Hungary won the silver, and Pavel Dovgal of Belarus took the bronze. Senior finished sixth, and Iliev, who emigrated to the United States from Bulgaria in 1991, was ninth. "When I moved to the United States in 1991, I retired from the sport. Seven years later, I came back just for these Olympic games. For a medal," said Iliev, who has the Olympic rings tattooed on his left shoulder. "And I was there." Modern pentathlon isn't a sport for the weak or the thank-God-it's-Friday set. It consists of five events, which are meant to recreate the trials of an ancient officer who was brought down in enemy territory as he tried to deliver a message on horseback. Having defended himself with a pistol and sword, the officer swam across a raging river before running through woods to deliver the message.
In Olympic competition, athletes fire 20 shots at 20 targets with a 4.5-milimeter air pistol; fence in a 24-person round robin; swim a 200-meter freestyle race; ride a horse over a course that has 12 jumps; and, finally, run a 3-kilometer race. Oh, yeah, all five events are done in one day. "This is one of the hardest sports," Iliev said. "It takes a lot." Senior was in second place after the shooting and the fencing, only to run into trouble on the riding event. Athletes are assigned horses, and Senior's turned out to be skittish. Fine in the warmup, the horse knocked a few rails, refused a jump twice and then veered away. Senior lost a total of 210 points, dropping to 14th. A solid run moved him to a sixth-place finish, the highest for an American since Michael Storm was fifth in 1984, when most of the Eastern bloc boycotted the games. But it was little consolation. "I didn't deal with it very well," Senior said. "It's a killer, unfortunately, to have a day like that." Iliev was tied for first on points going into the final event, the run. But he'd noticed some cramping in his legs during the swim. He started the run strong, opening up almost a seven-second lead on the first, kilometer-long lap of the cross country-like course. But the cramps returned, and runners were soon passing Iliev as if he was merely jogging in the park. By the end of the second lap, he was almost 24 seconds behind Svatkovsky. "I couldn't lift my knees," Iliev said. "My legs were cramped. I almost fell a couple of times." Iliev had never competed in an Olympics before, and he, too, was bitterly disappointed in his finish. The oldest men's competitor at 34, he trains about 10 hours a day and then works for another three or four. He did this to win a medal, not finish in the top 10. "I should have been in the top three," he said. "If I lost it by a normal run, it'd be OK. It wasn't fair." Still, the Americans are making progress, said Jim Gregory, the team leader. The United States hasn't won a medal in the modern pentathlon since Robert Beck's bronze in 1960. That was also the last top-five finish in a non-boycotted Olympics. If not for a balky horse and cramps, the Americans might have been on the medals podium. "In the pentathlon, luck of the draw really plays a factor, and today it didn"t deal us the right cards," Gregory said. "This is not a horrible result. We know we're doing the right thing." The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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