UIPM 2024 Pentathlon Junior World Championships : President’s welcome

Dear athletes, dear coaches and trainers, dear guests and officials!  

Welcome to one of the most prestigious and important competitions in the global Modern Pentathlon calendar.

The UIPM 2024 Pentathlon Junior World Championships promises to be a thrilling and captivating week of competition – with historic importance too. This is the second time our junior athletes will compete to become world champions in the new Modern Pentathlon format of Obstacle, Fencing, Swimming and Laser Run.

Some of these Under 22 athletes are also preparing for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, taking place six weeks from now, demonstrating remarkable versatility as they train for not five but six Modern Pentathlon disciplines!

In 2021, we held a very successful combined Youth & Junior World Championships in this historic and beautiful city, and in 2022 our senior athletes enjoyed the same opportunity during the UIPM 2022 Pentathlon World Championships.

We depended on Alexandria to host those showpiece competitions during the very difficult pandemic phase of our lives, and now we return in happier times to this wonderful place where education and sport are so beautifully intertwined. The world continues to be shaken by regional conflicts, but we can use sport as a beacon of peace and respect.

I know our junior athletes will show high performance this week, whether they are targeting Paris 2024 or Los Angeles 2028 for their Olympic dreams. The organisation of the Egyptian National Federation is always at the top level, as well as the hospitality, and I would like to thank them for arranging this competition with the support of the Egypt Government, the Egyptian Olympic Committee and our hosts, the Arab Academy for Science Technology & Maritime Transport of Alexandria, as well as all volunteers, sponsors and media representatives.

Within our movement we are always looking to the future and taking care of the next generations. Here you will see a different aspect to our sport with the exciting new Obstacle discipline taking over from Riding, a transition that will happen at all levels after Paris 2024.

As always, I ask athletes to remember their responsibility to compete in a spirit of fair play, as our founder Pierre de Coubertin envisaged, and respect the Olympic values as we together enjoy the glory of our wonderful sport of Modern Pentathlon. Faster, Stronger, Higher … Together.

Dr Klaus Schormann

UIPM President