General Sven Thofelt

With an Olympic Games career spanning 20 years, Sven Thofelt was one of the early icons of Modern Pentathlon, admired for his courage as much as his athletic prowess. He achieved the same longevity in his administrative career, serving as a leader of the global pentathlon movement for the first 40 years of UIPM’s existence.

Sven Alfred Thofelt, born on May 19, 1904, became a highly-regarded fencer and pentathlete in parallel with his military career. As a pentathlete made his Summer Olympic Games debut in 1928 in Amsterdam and won the gold medal. In Los Angeles four years later, he suffered broken ribs and an injured arm during a fall from his horse, but refused to give up competing and still managed to finish fourth – the same position he would achieve in 1936 in Berlin. As an epée fencer he won his first medal with the Swedish team in 1936, having finished ninth individually in 1932.

After World War II, the super-fit Thofelt returned for another Olympic Games in London in 1946, now aged 42 – and won another team medal for Sweden in fencing.

At home, Thofelt was crowned national champion in Modern Pentathlon six times. He also won three Swedish individual epée titles and even claimed a gold in the swimming pool (4x100m freestyle). As a fencer he won two silver and four bronze medals in the team epée at the World Championships between 1931 and 1947.

Thofelt was a career officer, graduating from the Royal Millitary Academy in 1924 and retiring in 1964 in the rank of Brigadier-General. He was an adjutant of the Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf (1938-47) and  King Gustav V (1948-50). In parallel, he served as a sports administrator.

In 1948, he became the first Secretary General of UIPM, and from 1960 to 1988 he served as President. He also spent a period as President of UIPMB having agreed with the IOC President, Abery Brundage, to incorporate Biathlon – which debuted in the Olympic Winter Games in 1960 in Squaw Valley – into UIPM. The first World Championships were held in Saalfeld, Austria.

Thofelt was Sweden’s chef de mission at the 1956 Summer Olympics, where his son Björn competed in Modern Pentathlon having previously won the world title in 1954. Thofelt was also President of the Swedish Fencing Federation (1968) and a Member of the Executive Board of the Swedish Olympic Committee (1969-76). Between 1970 and 1976, he served as an IOC Member and later as an Honorary Member. He died on February 1, 1993, aged 88.