(This story is based on a Forbes exclusive interview with Olympic Pentathlete and UIPM President Rob Stull on October 29, 2026. All quotes are taken directly from a transcript of the interview.)

Stull, the recently appointed president of the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM), is the person tasked with adapting the most tradition-bound event in the modern Olympic Games: How do you take a 114-year-old discipline, the Pentathlon, created by Baron Pierre de Coubertin himself to find the ultimate soldier, and transform it into a fast-paced, commercially self-sustaining entertainment product capable of capturing the attention of Gen Z consumers?

The answer involves a tactical pivot, a radical 90-minute broadcast format, and what some traditionalists view as absolute sacrilege: replacing the centuries-old equestrian discipline with a grueling, ninja-style obstacle course.

“We needed to move the sport from a position of defense to one of ambition,” Stull says, his voice carrying the measured confidence of a three-time Olympian who has spent 42 years within the movement. “I don’t like the phrase ‘saving the sport.’ Our sport is fine. What we have today is awesome. We just need to make sure the entire world knows about it, and we need a commercial model that allows us to feed ourselves.”

Overhauling A Heritage Asset

For decades, the modern pentathlon operated on the periphery of the Olympic program, safely insulated by its rich heritage but increasingly vulnerable to the shifting financial and cultural realities of global media consumption. The sport—traditionally consisting of fencing, swimming, equestrian show jumping, pistol shooting, and cross-country running—was historically contested over five grueling days. It was an elegant test of versatility, but also a nightmare for modern television programming.

When Stull threw his name into the presidential hat in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, it was with a spirit of unapologetic modernization. Winning by a razor-thin five-vote margin after three rounds of intense political maneuvering among more than one hundred voting nations, Stull inherited an organization that had been led by his predecessor, Klaus Schormann, for 31 years.

“There was no transition period in our statutes,” Stull recalls. “You become the president the next day and go straight to work. I ran on the ticket of being an American with the Olympic Games coming home to Los Angeles in 2028. The global sports landscape is changing rapidly. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is looking for innovation, cost reduction, and youth relevance. If you don’t adapt, you get left behind.”

Dropping The Horse

Stull’s immediate priority was to permanently shift the organization from defense to offense. The initial catalyst for structural change had occurred exactly five years prior, on October 28, 2021, when the UIPM’s Innovation Committee—chaired by former Mexican pentathlete and Stanford graduate Ivar Sisniega—made the monumental decision to drop equestrianism from the program following the Tokyo Games.

The decision sparked immense friction among the sport’s old guard, but from a corporate and operational standpoint, the numbers left the executive board with little choice. Equestrian sports carry massive logistical complexities, high venue costs, and steep barriers to entry that severely limit the sport’s geographic universality—a metric monitored closely by the IOC’s “Fit for the Future” campaign, spearheaded by IOC Executive Board member Kirsty Coventry.

To replace the horse, Stull and his team issued a comprehensive request for proposal (RFP) that attracted 62 competing sports applications. To evaluate the entrants, the UIPM assembled an elite advisory board consisting of heavy-hitting corporate and media minds: Peter Hutton, the former head of sports at Meta; Michael Payne, the legendary former IOC marketing director who revolutionized Olympic sponsorship; and David Hill, the broadcast visionary who created television’s yellow first-down line and produced the hit series Formula 1: Drive to Survive.

The group established 14 strict operational criteria, balancing broadcast viability, youth appeal, manufacturing costs, and what they called the “Coubertin narrative”—maintaining the fundamental soul of an all-around athletic test. When the dust settled, the needle landed firmly on ninja-style obstacle course racing.

The 90-Minute Revolution

The integration of obstacle racing does more than just lower costs; it completely alters the narrative arc of the competition. At the upcoming LA28 Games, the modern pentathlon will share an urban, hyper-accessible footprint with 3x3 basketball and BMX freestyle at the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area in Encino, California—deep within the economically vital San Fernando Valley.

Crucially, the entire five-discipline event has been compressed into a hyper-dynamic, 90-minute window.

“We had 26 major international events this year under the new format,” Stull notes, highlighting the operational metrics. “Our fastest event was clocked at 78 minutes; our slowest was 88 minutes. We proved it works. It took the entire 2025 season to iron out the logistical kinks with judges, coaches, and broadcast crews, but by 2026, we hit the ground running.”

The business rationale behind the compression is simple: media fragmentation. Still recalls a recent summit in Madrid with Yiannis Exarchos, the CEO of Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS).

“Yiannis looked at me and asked, ‘Rob, do you think people are going to sit and watch 90 straight minutes of modern pentathlon in Los Angeles?’” Stull smiles. “Before I could even answer, he said, ‘They’re not. But they’re also not going to watch 90 straight minutes of swimming or track and field either.’ Consumers today eat their content in bites. They switch to their phones, check social feeds, flip channels, and return when the action peaks. We cannot expect the modern audience to adapt to our historical timeline; our product must adapt to their consumption habits.”

To test the commercial viability of this high-octane iteration, the UIPM executed a brilliant piece of marketing in August 2026, staging the World Championships directly inside Universal Studios Beijing. By constructing the obstacle course in a high-traffic bottleneck where theme park visitors were mathematically forced to walk past the competition layout when entering and exiting the park, the event drew a staggering 420,000 spectators over the course of a single week.

The drama generated by the new format is equally undeniable. During the gold medal race for the men’s 100-meter obstacle sprint in China, the final two competitors crossed the finish line in an absolute dead heat: 23.622 seconds.

“The timing was measured to the thousandth of a second, and it was a perfect tie,” Stull says. “The race director called me frantic, looking at outdated rulebooks. I told him, ‘This is an entertainment product and a showcase of human excellence. It’s two gold medals, period. I take full responsibility.’ The crowd went wild, the athletes were ecstatic, and the broadcast numbers spiked.”

Corporate Self-Sufficiency And LA28

For Stull, the financial independence of the UIPM is the ultimate benchmark of long-term success. Unlike European nations that enjoy robust government funding via dedicated ministries of sport, American athletic governing bodies have historically operated as lean, entrepreneurial entities reliant on corporate sponsorships, media rights, and donor capital. Stull is intentionally applying that American commercial blueprint to the global federation.

The strategy is already yielding major corporate dividends, including lucrative long-term partnerships with major media conglomerates like Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), unlocking unprecedented broadcast distribution across 183 nations.

The environment for the LA28 Games is exceptionally fertile. The Los Angeles Organizing Committee, led by high-profile sports executive Casey Wasserman and newly appointed CEO Reynolds Hoover—a retired three-star Army general praised by Stull for his brilliant maneuvering of infrastructure support—has already logged historic ticket sales exceeding six million units.

With Hollywood heavyweights entering the operational fray—including Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and her husband, legendary producer and former USOC treasurer Frank Marshall, overseeing the creative delivery of the ceremonies—the stage is set for a massive media spectacle.

The modern pentathlon will occupy a highly coveted position on the LA28 calendar, broadcasting live during the first four days of the games (July 15–18, 2028). By anchoring the events at 9:30 AM Pacific Standard Time, the UIPM has strategically positioned its marquee medal rounds directly into the 6:30 PM prime-time television window across Central Europe, a traditional stronghold for the sport’s viewing audience.

Custodians Of A Century-Old Ideal

Despite the relentless push toward digitization and commercialization, Stull remains a romantic when it comes to the core philosophy of the Olympic movement. He frequently quotes legendary track icon Jesse Owens to the young athletes he encounters: “Medals tarnish and diplomas fade, but the memories and friendships remain.”

It is a sentiment born of his own experience. Stull’s journey has now come full circle from the 1984 Los Angeles Games, where he competed as a young fencer and pentathlete, walking through the tunnel of the LA Coliseum into a deafening wall of 90,000 cheering fans.

“We are all just custodians of a great idea,” Stull says quietly. “Sport has to be entertainment to survive in today’s marketplace, but it also has to stand for something deeper. The modern pentathlon was built to test the limits of human versatility and resilience. By making it accessible, affordable, and thrilling to watch, we aren’t changing the objective—we are simply future-proofing the dream for the next generation of athletes.”