Kate French, a horsewoman from a hunting family, wins the Olympic Gold Medal in the modern pentathlon for Britain.
The battle for gold in Tokyo’s modern pentathlon event involved yet another Olympian drama. Annika Schleu of Germany, comfortably in the lead going into the last day of the finals, experienced a meltdown in the equestrian test, catapulting Britain’s Kate French to the Gold Medal by the end of the afternoon.
Kate French, thirty years old, is at home on a horse. “I come from a riding background mainly; I’ve been riding since I was very little,” she said in an interview. French had horses from an early age and grew up in Pony Club. Her mother is Master of a mounted pack of hard-running bloodhounds, and her father is a Master of Beagles. She is the grand-niece of Derek French, ex-Master of the Eglinton and Caledon Hounds in Ontario (and an author and contributor to FHL).
Her early riding background notwithstanding, French is cautious in admitting which of the five pentathlon disciplines is her favorite. She started running early as well and says she loves to run. And hitting all her targets!
French may have been the biggest beneficiary of Schleu’s equine problems, but she’s no surprise upstart. Over the last eight years, French has won two World Cups, three European Championships, and one World Championship. She won this year’s World Cup in Hungary but came to Tokyo still haunted by her fifth-place Olympic finish five years ago in Rio. That, despite winning the equestrian phase. In Tokyo, as the pentathlon finals started on the last day of competition, French lay fifth.
The modern pentathlon started in the year 2000. The five disciplines are fencing (one-touch épée), swimming 200 meters, showjumping over a course of fifteen fences, all followed by the so-called laser-run―a 3200-meter run in four legs, each leg consisting of 800 meters plus laser-pistol shooting at five targets from 10 meters. The modern pentathlon is designed to emulate a hard day in the life of a nineteenth-century cavalry officer behind enemy lines.
In winning the Gold, French set a new Olympic record with 1,385 points overall. She finished first in the 200-meter freestyle, clocking a personal best. From there, she was one of the very few to jump her horse cleanly over the course of fences, finishing the round with only six time penalties and improving her position in the standings to fourth place. She went into the laser-run only fifteen seconds behind the leader, Uliana Batashova of Russia. French turned on the burners and caught Batashova after the first 400-meter leg. By the time she paused for her second of four pistol rounds, she was in the lead and never looked back. With running another of her strong suits, French powered her way first to the finish and the Gold Medal.
In the showjumping phase of the modern pentathlon, competitors ride horses drawn at random from a pool of carefully selected horses of the host nation. Each rider has twenty minutes to become familiar with the horse. Anika Schlue didn’t appear to get along with her horse from the time she mounted. With the verbal encouragement of her coach, she used her whip but to no avail. When the judges saw her coach lightly punch the horse above the rear leg, they took it as a breach of the rules and disqualified the coach from the competition.
In the drama that followed this unfortunate affair, the pentathlon official in charge of selecting horses insisted that all horses selected were “excellent” and blamed the rider for any problems. In a subsequent statement, the German Olympic Committee said that Friday’s showing damaged the image of the sport and called for rule changes for the protection of both horse and rider.
In my view, inherent in any competition involving a horse lies a factor of unpredictability. No rule changes will ever turn a horse into an inanimate object, subject to the laws of physics, like a laser pistol, an épée, a swimming pool, or a running track. A rider’s job on a strange horse is to find the best way to get along with the animal and get the job done to the best of the horse’s and rider’s abilities. After that, accept the results as a sportsman. Yes, rather old-fashioned, I know.
Kate French seemed to pay no heed to the side drama, though it provided prime fodder for the journalists and photographers. French concentrated on remaining focused on her races and the self-control necessary for accurate shooting. Congratulations, Kate French!
Posted August 12, 2021