On the sidelines of the Pentathlon and Laser Run World Championship, the president of the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne, or UIPM, told Al-Ahram Weekly about the challenges facing the sport in the Middle East and Africa.

“The Middle East and North African region are all Islamic countries from where Prophet Mohamed has called for teaching children our main sports -- swimming, shooting and horse riding. This region is where we want to develop more,” Klaus Schormann said.

“You know there is a saying that says Egypt is not Africa, Egypt is Arab, but anyway, according to our philosophy of the sport, we believe that religious groups should not be isolated because the Islamic religion school supports our sports even before our disciplines were introduced more than 100 years ago, and therefore, in our sport, there is no gender question about men and women and how they can be dressed up, or how they can perform. It is easy.

“Look at Aya Medani who was a class athlete young girl playing with the hijab. I remember her when she was still playing at the youth B category and went up to the senior level. She was a great champion and look at her now. She is a member of our UIPM board and also serving the sport athletes commission at the IOC as well. So, there has never been a discussion in our union linked to religion, politics or culture. We are the sport of [founder of the International Olympic Committee Pierre] Coubertin, for everybody to join and for that we are well balanced in everything for the human being and for the Arab world, where they love riding horses.

“There are now competitions in the region. In Doha, we have that end-of season event, ‘The Champion of Champions’ for three years now and we will continue hopefully next year as well.

“Though some countries have created federations for the sport like Qatar, the UAE and Oman, yet, the region still needs to do something. We also got a request from Saudi Arabia to work on an activity with them. Meanwhile, we are looking now for a coordinator who speaks the language because it is a matter of language because everybody speaks English here, but if we have Arabic as well it will make things easier for development projects.”

The modern pentathlon is an Olympic sport that comprises five different events: fencing, freestyle swimming, equestrian show jumping, and a final combined event of pistol shooting and cross country running.

Schormann said the Middle East is part of Asia which he believes should not be ignored or sidelined. “The president of the Asian Confederation is Korean and I am always telling him please don’t forget about this part because it is Asia. I encourage him to concentrate on the development side with these federations and to do more with these countries with the top priority of focusing on the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

“I will have an opportunity when in Qatar for the World Track and Field World Championship and also later at the ‘The Champion of Champions’ event to hold talks with the pentathlon and equestrian federations. Then we want to speak to schools and universities in order to recruit and work for our sport. It is popular in Egypt but not in other sides.”

The German is working on combining between the two confederations of Africa and Asia for the sake of the sport. “In my last visit to Egypt, during the World Cup event, I met with the minister of sports of Egypt and we discussed having Cairo as a centre for the modern pentathlon for training, holding seminars… etc which is to be supported by the government, with the Egyptian federation being the base to be running this later. I am positive regarding the Middle East and Africa, from which we will be having new federations coming up through the laser run and triathlon as a beginning. Then, to find the money that they can invest in the riding, we will see how to do so, while focusing on the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar 2022, the first time in Africa. So it is an obligation by the IOC to involve all sports federations to act a lot in Africa and promote Olympic sports so that the young people can participate in all Olympic events and youth games. This is why we are engaging more in Africa at this moment. In Asia, we are a step ahead but 52 African countries in one continent makes it the biggest group of countries in the world and I am targeting to have something like 35 to 40 countries in place for our sport.”

Schormann, who has been working in the modern pentathlon for 26 years, confirmed that he still has a wish list to fulfill “before I hand over my position to someone else”.

“I was quite successful in the past few months to refresh some money into the pockets of our federation but that money is to be linked to other disciplines like the laser run more than the pentathlon, but still it will help with pentathlon, whose consumers are limited and we can enlarge. You can have a laser run event every week. My colleagues understood when I suggested including non-Olympic disciplines to help the sport. For example, rowing is supporting canoe which is 30 per cent of an Olympic sport. Several federations like rowing, gymnastics and others like us are earning money from the non-Olympic sports who have thousands of consumers. However, you still need heroes in the Olympic part for the sponsors, which brings advertisers. People have to know and learn that there is another meaning for how to sell and promote your sport.”

Schormann said that during his years in office, he faced many challenges which he succeeded in overcoming, describing his 26 years as a successful career.  

“When I was an athlete myself we had a five-day competition. In 1993, I became president and I presented the board with the one-day format competition. Then in 1994 I changed in half a year from fire pistol to shot pistol which was another revolution. There were always obstacles facing me but I was able to convince people to make changes like the shooting, then we had fencing and, how to make a combination in 2008 to claim the approval for the combined event (run and shoot) which I won by one vote. We made a big step in 2010 in the Singapore Youth Olympic Games with the laser run and shooting and so therefore everything I found out, I tested first on the youth, then juniors and seniors.

“I usually win the votes for my proposals after strong discussions. I never used the word ‘fight’ to convince people, but ‘discussion’ to reach the majority which will give you the start to go ahead. Now, I’m hoping we can find a way to include the mixed relay event in the Olympic Games in Paris 2024.

“I have always something new in my mind and good for our sport and for the Olympic movement. This is my wish is that I need to have always strong people around me so I am the main tree in the centre, protected by other strong trees, so when the storm comes, I am still protected. If you are in a boat you need good officers to secure the boat and manoeuver the storm. Never a one-man show but a team show. Then you are stronger and this is always my goal.”

The UIPM president said he was glad with the increase in the broadcasting television ratings of the sport. “The ratings were low in London 2012 because we had overlapping with other sports. It was the worst broadcast in our history. Now in Tokyo, we are expected to be better. Ratings are counted not by the number of spectators in the stadiums, but viewers of TV. In this event, we have big numbers of television viewers in the last two days, six million watching in China, more in your region. Almost 300 million saw our champions in the past three days. This is a number we would like to increase in the media because this will also give us the possibility to find more sponsors.”

Schormann has been UIPM president since 1993. The position was jointly held with the president of the International Biathlon Union until 1998 when the two sports separated into self-governing bodies.

Schormann has always displayed a high level of voluntary commitment to sport having been involved since 1965 in various roles for the modern pentathlon. Most notable is his position as president of the German Association for Modern Pentathlon which he has held since 1984. In 2007, he also joined the executive board of the German Olympic Academy.

In the international Olympic movement, he has been a member and coordinator of the IOC’s working groups on culture and Olympic education since 1994. In 2008 he also became chairman of the IOC sub-commission on Youth Olympic Games and a member of the ad-hoc working group for educational matters linked to the IOC commissions for culture and Olympic education and Sport for All.