She's a Good Sport

An Olympic Team Member in 3 of Them, Taormina Tackles Modern Pentathlon

Every Olympics brings a new cast of athletes, dramatic quests and occasionally unusual sports into the consciousness of interested Americans, but rarely -- or, perhaps, never -- has the obscure pastime known as modern pentathlon kept anyone beyond relatives of participants clamoring for updates.

That could change this summer.

The moment the U.S. Olympic Committee announced Sunday night that Sheila Taormina had earned a place on the modern pentathlon team, becoming the first person to qualify for the Olympics in three sports, modern pentathlon suddenly mattered. By summer's end, the average American might be able to recite confidently the five component sports of the endeavor -- fencing, shooting, swimming, show jumping and running.

Taormina, who competed in swimming at the 1996 Summer Games and triathlon in 2000 and 2004, brings a drama-laden story to a sport considered so arcane and irrelevant that the International Olympic Committee executive board proposed six years ago that it be thrown off the Olympic program. Three years later, the San Antonio-based organization that oversaw modern pentathlon's development for more than 50 years in the United States folded.

To Taormina, however, the sport's five rungs represented a perfect next step for a woman who had already transitioned successfully from a gold medal performance in swimming as a member of the 4x200 relay team at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, to the triathlon, which involves swimming, running and cycling. Taormina finished sixth in the event in Sydney in 2000 and a disappointing 23rd in Athens four years later.

"I know I have the potential to win," Taormina said recently. "I also know I have the potential to be a complete fool and screw up royally. I'm a really fun wild card. . . . Of course, I really want to win. And I can win."

Never mind that, as of four years ago, she had never held a gun, ridden anything other than a kiddie pony or picked up a fencing epee. She had to learn to fire an air pistol with accuracy, maneuver unfamiliar horses around show jumping courses (modern pentathletes draw random horses for competitions) and become competent enough with an epee to win at least half of her matches if she hoped to remain in medal contention.

"People just said, 'There is no way you can do this; it's not possible,' " said her longtime triathlon coach, Lew Kidder. "No one has ever even tried this . . . [but] she was determined she was going to push that rock up the hill."

The energy she put into the new endeavors left her little time to hone her areas of expertise; she saw her times drop in swimming and running. Besides all that, Taormina ran into unexpected and stomach-churning problems: How would she pay for all this training, and what if she failed to make the team? Where, she wondered as she began to have international success just over two years ago, were all of the sponsors that seemed eager to support mainstream swimmers and increasingly popular triathletes?

The financial rewards to date, she said, have been virtually zilch. She had to sell her house two years ago simply to remain financially afloat. She skipped this past weekend's world championships in Budapest, because she had been asked to give a speech by a group in Indianapolis and she needed the cash.

Modern pentathlon, she said, has produced something in abundance that she rarely encountered during her other Olympic journeys: tears.