Pentathlon featured in the ancient Olympics, when competitors would run a short distance, jump, throw a javelin, throw a discus and wrestle. Modern pentathlon was created by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founding father of the modern Olympic movement. It was first included in the 1912 Games in Stockholm and has been present at every Olympics since.

Modern pentathlon consists of five disciplines: pistol shooting, epee fencing, swimming, equestrian show-jumping and running. The premise is that of a soldier who is commandeered to deliver a message. He starts out on an unfamiliar horse in enemy territory, but is forced to dismount, whereupon he has to defend himself with his pistol and his sword. After swimming across a river, he finishes his task by running through the woods to deliver his message on foot.

The total number of points scored in the first four events determine the starting order for the final discipline, thereby turning the 3,000m cross-country run - the last of the five events - into a handicap race. In the cross country, competitors set off at intervals which correspond in seconds to the number of points that they have accumulated in the first four events. The first athlete to cross the finishing line is therefore the overall winner.

Previously held over four or five days, modern pentathlon now takes place on a single day.

Scoring was based on an athlete’s placing in each of the five disciplines until 1952. In similar fashion to decathlon, however, each event is now scored on a points basis. In swimming and running, the two timed disciplines, there are set times that equate to 1,000 points, with each second either side of this time being given a plus or minus point value. The three other events are scored in similar fashion, whereby there is an objective of shooting target points, fencing victories and a fault-free ride to maximise the possible number of points in each event.

Shooting, in which the competitors have 40 seconds to fire 20 shots from an air pistol at a 17cm-square target from 10 metres away, is the first event. A bull’s-eye is worth 10 points and a total score of 172 (out of 200) equates to 1,000 pentathlon points.

It is followed by the fencing, with comprises a round-robin competition between each participant. A total score of 70 per cent victories yields 1,000 points.

The swimming event is a freestyle race over 200m, with a time of two minutes 30 seconds for men and two minutes 40 seconds for women being the 1,000-point mark.

The show-jumping, for which horses are selected by the drawing of lots, is the penultimate discipline. The course is 400m long and has 15 obstacles, including one double and one triple. Competitors start with 1,200 points and are deducted 28 points for having a fence down, 40 points for a refusal, 40 points for falling off and four points per second for being over the time limit.

The 1,000-point score in the men’s 3,000m cross-country race is 10 minutes while the equivalent in the women’s race is 11 minutes and 20 seconds. Every whole second is worth four points.

A team event for men was introduced to the Olympic Games in 1952 before being discontinued after the 1992 Games. An individual event for women was introduced in 2000.

Great Britain have won six medals in Olympic modern pentathlon. The men’s team won gold and bronze in 1976 and 1988, respectively, before Stephanie Cook became the first female gold medal winner in 2000. Kate Allenby and Georgina Harland claimed bronze in 2000 and 2004, respectively, before Be Number 1‘s Heather Fell secured silver in 2008. Overall, therefore, British competitors have claimed four of the nine available medals in women’s modern pentathlon at the Olympics.

Athletes from Sweden won all nine men’s individual Olympic gold medals between 1912 and 1956.

General George Patton, who found wider fame as an American general in the Second World War, competed in the first Olympic pentathlon competition in 1912. A 26-year-old army lieutenant at the time, he finished in a very creditable fifth place. Ironically, it was the shooting event that let him down.