The Pentathletes

Young Lieut. Patton, a dead-shot rifleman, banged away at the twisting target. He was outraged when the judges told him that he had scored one clean miss. Why just the day before, in a practice round, he had set an unofficial record of 98 out of 100. But Patton might well have been jittery about an upcoming ordeal. During the next four days, against the world's best athletes, he would have to 1) swim 300 meters, 2) fence from sunup to sundown, 3) ride a strange mount over 25 jumps on a rugged 5,000-meter course, 4) run 4,000 meters cross country. When it was all over, young Patton was an aching mass of muscle. But to the day he was fatally injured in an auto crash in Germany in 1945, General George Patton stoutly maintained that he had an off day of shooting in the 1912 Olympics.

As the first U.S. competitor in the Modern (military) Pentathlon*--and a fierce one at that--Patton needed no excuses for his fifth-place showing behind four Swedish army men. Since then, and particularly after Patton gave West Point a competitive pentathlon plaque, first awarded in 1935, Americans have done even better in the little-known sport. The U.S. won the team title in the 1936 Olympics, and in 1948 Major George B. Moore (who was killed in action in Korea) won an individual second place. Last week at West Point, 13 officers and enlisted men, captained and managed by Captain Guy Troy, were cheerfully knocking themselves out at what is often called the "overall Olympic sport."

Five-Ring Circus. The training routine has both the exhausting overtones of a six-day bike race and the bewildering versatility of a five-ring circus. The day starts with 6 a.m. reveille. At 8, the candidates for the team put in more than an hour of riding, sharing six retired Army remount horses borrowed from Fort Belvoir. At ten, the group heads for the pistol range where Sharpshooter Troy puts them through their paces. Using .22 caliber pistols--because they are easy to shoot and ammunition is cheap--the squad practices pumping bull's-eyes into a man-sized silhouette at 25 meters. The problem: learning to hit the mark in the three-second interval that the target faces the shooter.

At 11:30, the squad heads for the swimming pool for a series of windsprints or a 1,500-yard trial to build up endurance. After lunch, there is a welcome hour of rest. Fencing practice is a grueling two-hour workout--for in the Olympic pentathlon, usually with some 50 men competing, the fencers must all meet one another in tense touch-and-out matches. Troy tops off his squad's work day with about an hour of cross-country, the easiest of the five sports to teach and learn. ("You just have to get out there and run.")

True Test. Like most pentathletes, who need stamina and agility rather than strength and size, Captain Troy is wiry and medium sized (5 ft. 8 1/2 in., 145 Ibs.). And like most, he became interested almost by accident. A West Pointer ('46), Troy won his letter in lacrosse, but was no great shakes at any other sport. Duty in Munich, where the 1948 U.S. Olympic equestrian team was training, got him interested in riding.* But since it takes about four years of grinding practice to turn out a topflight pentathlon man, Troy, now 29, did not enter his first competition until last winter's Pan-American games. He placed third, paced the U.S. to the team title.

Flying off to Rio (courtesy of MATS) last week for the Brazilian pentathlon championships. Troy was bubbling over with enthusiasm for what he believes is the quintessence of all sports: "If you're not good in any one sport, the pentathlon gives you a chance to make up for it." Troy is certain of one thing: "It's the true test of a man."

* Not to be confused with the standard track & field pentathlon: broad jump, javelin throw, 1,500-meter run, discus throw, and 200-meter dash. *Which he could not get these days at West Point. With the horse cavalry defeated by armor, the military academy closed its riding hall in 1947

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