LONDON: As Egyptian pentathlete Ahmed El-Gendy rounded the last corner in Paris last summer, he pounded his chest and looked to the heavens.
This was it. He had been told as a child that he could be a future Olympic champion and here he was, 15 years later, fulfilling his first coach’s prediction by winning gold in the modern pentathlon at the 2024 Games.
El-Gendy’s gold was just reward for a lifetime of toil, competing against the odds in a sport that — since its Olympic debut in 1912 — had been largely dominated by Europeans.
On the final day of the 2024 Olympics, the 24-year-old became the first Egyptian, Arab and African athlete to be crowned modern pentathlon champion.
“It feels fresh in my mind, like it was yesterday,” El-Gendy told Arab News in an exclusive interview. “Just a couple of days ago, the Olympics posted a video on their Instagram and it showed those last 50 meters again when I crossed the line. It gave me goosebumps.
“When I think back it just felt unreal. For three years, since I got silver in Tokyo, I was dreaming of this gold. These were tough years, with injuries and a lot of struggles, but finally I made it to a gold medal in the Olympics.”
Modern pentathlon is a complex, multi-disciplinary event that requires its competitors to demonstrate an impressive range of sporting skills. It has traditionally involved swimming, fencing, showjumping, running and shooting.
The latter two has been paired in recent years in what has been termed a “laser run,” designed to create an entertaining finale to the event.
It was in the laser run at the 2021 Tokyo Games that El-Gendy first emerged as an elite contender, producing a stirring performance to claim silver. Seemingly an also-ran in 13th place heading into the final race, the then-21-year-old left the field in his wake to finish as Olympic runner-up.
Despite suffering injuries in the intervening years, El-Gendy found himself among the favorites for gold when the Olympics came to Paris last summer. And he duly delivered, setting a new Olympic and world record in in the process.
“These records are a big thing because they put you on another level,” El-Gendy said. “Very few world records were broken in the Paris Olympics so I was very proud of it. It was a great moment for me.
“This time, I was a little more stressed because in Tokyo I wasn’t expected to get the silver medal and I was still young but in Paris, all eyes were on me.
“I tried to deal with it by treating it like it was my first Olympics, trying to feel no pressure. People were talking about me as a potential champion but it was only when I had built up a big enough gap that I felt confident that it was my medal.”
El-Gendy’s gold was only the ninth won by an Egyptian athlete in the history of the Olympics and the first by an Egyptian man since Karam Gaber was crowned Greco-Roman wrestling champion in Athens in 2004.
Unsurprisingly, the reception El-Gendy received when he returned to Cairo from Paris was rapturous.
“It was crazy,” he said of the welcome in the Egyptian capital. “There were friends and family of course, but then just so many other people and media.
“The Egyptian people are very emotional so when they see someone is in a position to win something, they support that person with all their power and all the energy.
“I felt this in Paris. I saw on social media that people were putting their hopes on me, that they were really watching and that they really wanted me to win.
“It made me very happy and I was very proud to get this medal for Egypt.”
Among those offering congratulations was Egypt’s most famous athlete. Not only did Mohamed Salah get in touch with El-Gendy, the Liverpool star led his fellow Pharaohs in a guard of honor for the pentathlete and Egypt’s other Olympians.
“We had conversations, messages,” El-Gendy said, smiling. “He commented on my post on Instagram; he just wrote the number one.
“Then when we returned back to Egypt, there was a training camp for the football team so we went to the stadium and it was amazing because as the captain of the national team, Mo Salah was the first one in this line. He seemed to be very happy and very proud of us.”
El-Gendy is already plotting the defense of his Olympic crown at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles but the Egyptian will face, quite literally, a new set of obstacles.
With the future of modern pentathlon as an Olympic event under threat, its governing body, the UIPM or Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne, has taken drastic steps to ensure inclusion for 2028.
One of its long-standing disciplines, showjumping, has been replaced by obstacle racing — think Ninja Warrior — in a bid to make pentathlon more accessible and audience-friendly.
El-Gendy admits opinion among athletes has been divided but that he understands the change is necessary for pentathlon’s preservation.
“Whenever any decisions are taken in sport, people will disagree,” El-Gendy said. “A few years ago people were upset when the laser run became one event, but now we can see it is more interesting for the spectators and the athletes too.
“Some people do not want to accept it and others are supporting it, but it had to be done. We had this threat that modern pentathlon wouldn’t make it to the Los Angeles Games without this change so we had to do it.
“I feel sad in a way because I have been doing this sport for 15 years but it will make pentathlon more accessible to so many countries.
“Now that we don’t need horses, we can see many other countries competing and winning at the Olympics and World Championships, not just those who can afford to have the conditions for showjumping.”
While El-Gendy is welcoming the opportunity to hone a new sporting skill, he recognizes that an existing shoulder injury might make obstacle racing particularly challenging for him.
However, the pentathlete — like many of those who competed at the 2024 Olympics — is dedicating the first half of this year to training for obstacle racing before entering his first event of 2025 in the summer.
For Egypt’s gold medal hero, there is one driving force that will keep him going for the next three-and-a-half years.
“My goal is to train hard and really get into the obstacles, to be very very good at it so that by 2027, 2028, I can be at the top and in Los Angeles to defend my Olympic title,” El-Gendy said.
“When I do something I have to be the best at it, there’s no other option for me. I don’t want to be a silver medalist at Los Angeles 2028, I want to win gold. I will work so hard for it and give it my all to win another gold in LA.”
