News The Asia/Oceania Modern Pentathlon Championship 2015 ended this weekend with 12 athletes guaranteed places at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Slots for both men and women were awarded to the five best placed athletes from Asia and the best placed athlete from Oceania (stay up to date with qualifications for the 2016 Games here) In all, seven events were contested: male and female individual, male and female team, and mixed, male and female relay Among the women, the standout performance came from Qian Chen, from China, currently No 3 in the world ranking, who won the continental tournament for the second time in a row China yielded three athletes in the top five, however, as Olympic classification rules for the sport state that each country can only have a maximum of two athletes per gender competing at the Games, only the two best placed Chinese competitors will go to Rio 2016 – Wanxia Liang and Chen Confirmation was published on International Federation website The other four women who qualified for Rio 2016 are Sunwoo Kim (Korea), Natsumi Tomonaga (Japan), Elena Potapenko (Kazakhstan) and Chloe Esposito (Australia - the only female representative from Oceania) Among the men, the favorite, Woongtae Jun, from Korea, (winner of the World Modern Pentathlon Cup in 2014), secured his place at the Games His countryman, Dongii Lee, also qualified for Rio 2016 The other four men who qualified were Haihang Su and Cao Zhongrong (both from China), Tomoya Miguchi (from Japan - who won the Olympic spot thanks to the same rule that the prohibits the presence of more than two athletes from the same country), and Max Esposito (from Australia – brother of Chloe Esposito, who qualified in the women’s competition) Confirmation was published on International Federation website The modern pentathlon tournament will bring a total of 72 athletes to the Games in Rio 2016 As the host country, Brazil has two guaranteed places in the sport, one per gender More qualifiers in sight The modern pentathlon will have a busy month in June After Asia, the final stage of the Modern Pentathlon World Cup in Minsk (Belarus) will take place between the 12 and 14, and the winners will also qualify for the Olympics From the 28th, the World Championships in Berlin (Germany) kick off with six Olympic places up for grabs, (three per gender), to be distributed to the best placed athletes not already qualified for Rio 2016 How it works Inspired by the skills required in the military, the pentathlon first took place in the ancient Olympics in 708 BC The "modern" in the name refers to the innovations brought by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern era of the Games The race begins with a qualifying round of fencing Then the athletes compete in five disciplines in a single day, accumulating points in each of them The first event is a 200m freestyle swimming race, followed by another round of fencing, where victory ensures another point Competitors must then ride a course of 12 obstacles over a distance of 300-400 meters on horseback The combined results of these three events decides the order in which competitors are released for the final leg of the competition – a combined running and shooting phase, which consists of an 800m race including four laps of running interspersed with stops in a firing range The winner is the first athlete to complete the running and shooting phase Rio2016 com is not an absolute authority on qualification for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which is an ongoing process Final places will only be confirmed in July 2016 (for the Olympic Games) and August 2016 (for the Paralympic Games) The qualification systems are defined by each sport’s respective International Federation and the International Olympic Committee or International Paralympic Committee, and are subject to change When an athlete or team wins a quota place for their nation, the final decision on whether this ‘slot’ is used and which athletes are sent is taken by the respective National Olympic Committee or National Paralympic Committee (NOC or NPC) Even when athletes win a ‘nominal’ place for themselves, NOCs/NPCs may have to decide who to send if the number of qualified athletes from one country exceeds the quota