The New York Times has a little snicker at the expense of the Olympic event of modern pentathlon, which is condensing its five-part premodern military-skills format--shooting, fencing, riding, running, and swimming--into four parts. Running and shooting will become a combined sub-event, like the winter biathlon without skis:
But modern pentathlon -- derived from Greek, combining five (penta) and contest (athlon) -- has no plans to change its name to tetrathlon.
Nor should it! It still takes five skills; it just requires a little bit of multitasking. What the sport really needs to do is to keep building on the run-and-shoot concept. I didn't watch any modern pentathlon in Beijing, but I did make a point of buying a commemorative modern-pentathlon Fuwa figurine, because--well, because just look at it. You tell Huanhuan you're not sure his discipline should be in future Olympics. Postmodern pentathlon would be the baddest event there is.
