By Ahmed Shawkat
For Ahmed El-Gendy to jump from 13th place to 2nd place and win a silver medal in an Olympic competition, and not only that but in “Modern Pentathlon”, is a historical achievement that we have to be proud of and build on in Paris 2024.
Ahmed El-Gendy’s story is very inspirational – a story that tells us that if you have a dream, you have to hold on to it. The scene where he won the medal was one for the history books and makes one think about all the obstacles that he must have faced along the way!
Here are 4 reasons why Ahmed El-Gendy’s achievement is unbelievable:
Modern Pentathlon Isn’t That Easy
Modern Pentathlon is a very challenging sport. Imagine playing five different sports: fencing, freestyle swimming, equestrian, and a final combined event of pistol shooting and cross-country running all in one day!
Not all athletes can play this sport, but Ahmed El-Gendy was able to win more than one medal; the silver medal in Tokyo 2020 and the gold medal in the 2018 Youth Olympics.
From 13th Place To Silver
In this competition, Ahmed finished the fencing round in 13th place with 17 wins, which is considered a fair result because it is the weakest of the five games. He also got a good record in freestyle swimming with 316 points, making him move straight up to 14th place. After that, he started the equestrian and achieved 16 penalty points, with 284 points.
El-Gendy started the Laser Rang Race (running and shooting) 50 seconds behind the first competitor and 29 seconds behind the third. .
In the end, he finally came 2nd place, only 4 seconds behind the gold medalist!
The First Arab & African
Modern Pentathlon has become an official Olympic sport since Stockholm 1912, which Sweden dominated from 1912 to 1932 with 13 out of 15 medals. Most of the athletes who won at this game in the Olympics are from Europe. Now, our champion Ahmed El-Gendy has achieved a historical medal that made him the first Arab and African to win at this kind of game. Can you believe it?
He’s only twenty-one
El-Gendy, aged just 21 has won many medals already including the gold medals in the World Junior Championships, the World Youth Championship, and the Youth Olympics.
To win all these medals and the silver medal at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics at 21 years of age – that is really impressive, don’t you think?
What El-Gendy has achieved is truly magnificent, and we have to build on his achievement and start preparing to place Egypt on the international Modern Pentathlon map in the future.
