Perhaps no sport tests an athlete's endurance and versatility like modern pentathlon, which combines five unrelated disciplines - shooting, fencing, swimming, showjumping and cross country - over a 12-hour period.
Participants shoot at a target 10 meters away, then compete in a series of one-touch epee fencing bouts. A 200-meter freestyle swim follows. After coaxing a horse they've never ridden around a showjumping course, athletes complete their day with a 3,000-meter cross country run.
Totals from the first four events determine starting positions for the cross-country run. The leader starts first, with the others following at intervals determined by the points difference between them. First across the finish line wins.
Like many Olympic sports, modern pentathlon has military roots. Created by Modern Games founder Pierre de Coubertin, it resembles the act of a soldier delivering a message to his general.
U.S. BEST: North Fort Myers native Chad Senior nearly quit the sport after a forgettable performance in the riding competition knocked him out of medal contention in 2000. Leading after three events, Senior finished sixth after his horse balked at two jumps and clipped two others.
After 18 months away from the sport, Senior returned, placing second at the Pan Am Games in 2003. Now 29 and ranked seventh in the world, he represents the Americans' best chance at a medal.
In the women's field, 2003 Pan Am Games winner Anita Allen, 26, of Indiana gives the United States its best shot in a sport in which it has one medal in 43 years, Emily DeRiel's silver in 2000.
WORLD BEST: As many as 16 men could contend, but training partners Edvinas Krungolcas and Andrejus Zadneprovskis of Lithuania, who finished 1-2 at the 2001 European Championships, might be the favorites. Zadneprovskis, who placed a disappointing seventh at the 2000 Games, is the reigning world champion.
Great Britain appears to have the strongest women's duo, with 2000 bronze medalist Kate Allenby looking to return to the medal stand and Georgina Harland, ranked first in the world, poised to join her.
TWICE AS NICE: With only four members, the U.S. team is understandably tight-knit, but none more than Vaho Iagorashvili, a bronze medalist for the Soviet Union in 1988, and Mary Beth Larsen-Iagorashvili, a fourth-place finisher for the United States in 2000. They were married in 1999.
