UIPM 2024 Pentathlon U19 World Championships: President’s welcome

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

Welcome to one of the most exciting competitions in the global Modern Pentathlon calendar. The UIPM 2024 Pentathlon U19 World Championships promises to be a thrilling and captivating week of competition.

Only seven weeks ago at the Olympic Games in Paris, we said farewell to the traditional Modern Pentathlon format that will forever have a place in our heritage and our hearts. Times change, and we are embracing change as a movement, so it is tremendously exciting that we gather here in Druskininkai to see the future of our sport materialise.

For the second year in succession, our U19 athletes will compete to become world champions in the new Modern Pentathlon format of Obstacle, Fencing, Swimming and Laser Run. They will be ready to convert their training into results as they start chasing dreams in a new Olympic cycle – it is possible that several of them could be the stars of Los Angeles 2028 in four years’ time.

Here in Lithuania, we always have the sense that we are in the Modern Pentathlon heartland. Not only has this country produced numerous exceptional athletes, but the Lithuanian Modern Pentathlon Federation and partners have consistently provided high-level competitions with knowledgeable crowds, sponsors and media representatives – and first-class hospitality.

Within our movement we are always looking to the future and taking care of the next generations. In these unstable times, when the world continues to be shaken by regional conflicts, our stars of tomorrow remind us all that sport can be a powerful beacon of peace, respect and hope.

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