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Saturday, September 30
Russian wins, Americans finish sixth and ninth
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia -- After two events in the modern
pentathlon, Velizar Iliev and fellow American Chad Senior looked at
the standings and started thinking it might actually happen.
For the first time since 1960, the United States might just win
a medal. Better yet, it might even win two.
Instead, the Americans had to watch from a distance as Dmitry
Svatkovsky of Russia 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
medal. 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 first after three events, 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 nonboycotted 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."
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