What Klaus Schormann, the tenacious, 75-year-old President of the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM), has since learned is that the International Olympic Committee (IOC), never the most constant of companions, has had enough of riding being one of the five constituent parts of an event dreamed up by the founder of the modern Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

So it’s for the chop.

Several horses refused to jump for riders at this summer’s Tokyo 2020 Olympics, including Saint-Boy, ridden by Germany’s Annika Schleu, who was leading the competition entering the riding event.

German coach Kim Raisner was later sent home following video footage showing her punching Saint-Boy, while Schleu was criticised for repeatedly whipping the distressed horse.

Bad PR indeed for an element of modern pentathlon which was effectively diminished back in 1994 when it began featuring only in the finals of major events rather than the qualifying competition. And which has endured criticism regarding horse and rider welfare over a long period of time.

This was one of the earlier changes effected upon this most traditional of sports amidst demands for increased audience accessibility and exciting presentation.

Shortly after being installed as UIPM President, Schormann received urgent guidance from the then President of the IOC, Juan-Antonio Samaranch - guidance which he has never forgotten.

"I remember well when I became President of the UIPM in 1993 I had conversations with Juan-Antonio Samaranch," Schormann told me in 2014.

"And he said to me ‘Mr President, your sport is too long! It has too much tradition. Something has to change. You have to make it more interesting for TV, and less costly to televise.’ This was a key conversation I had with Mr Samaranch."

The sport had already begun to heed the need for change at that point. At the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics competition was condensed from five to four days, partly to dissuade competitors from taking sedatives or beta blockers to enhance their shooting by scheduling it five hours before the running.

Los Angeles also saw new arrangements in the concluding run. The leader after four events set off first, with others following him in a handicap according to their points differential, meaning the overall winner was the first to cross the line.

However, the "conversation" between Presidents Samaranch and Schormann took place a year after the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, where the unpredictable riding event - as tradition dictated, on horses drawn at random by athletes - was put on last. The move failed to earn extra media attention. The run had also reverted to its previous, non-handicapped mode.

More - or rather less - was needed. And Schormann, with his background of marketing and publicity within the UIPM, felt he was just the man to manage it.

At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics the modern pentathlon switched to its current incarnation of a one-day competition, with competitors using air pistols, rather than firing live rounds. The event concluded in dramatic fashion as Russia's Edouard Zenovka stumbled and fell in the final metres of the concluding run, with gold going to Kazakhstan's Alexander Parygin.

Four years later, women made their Olympic debut in the event.

From January 1, 2009, the final two elements of shooting and running were combined, and in 2011 air pistols were replaced, controversially, with laser pistols as the UIPM strove to extricate itself from the rumoured position of being Most Vulnerable Olympic Event.

That double shift between the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics took a lot of adjusting to on behalf of the athletes, causing much disquiet and uncertainty. But again, as the years went on, the format was seen as being a positive alteration. Modern pentathlon had secured its place back in the Olympic fold.

"It is like when you go into the market when you are in business," Schormann added in 2014. "You cannot afford to stay still."

On one point, however, he remained adamant. "From time to time people ask me if we will move from horses to bikes," he said. "We will never change that."

November 18. That is the deadline by which the IOC expects to hear that riding will be dropped from the modern pentathlon programme. Although the nod may be given even sooner, as Schormann and the IOC President Thomas Bach are said to be meeting in Lausanne to discuss this pressing matter on Tuesday (November 9).

Riding will remain for the Paris 2024 Olympics, but by the time modern pentathlon goes ahead at Los Angeles 2028 the equestrian element will have to be replaced with A N Other event. Modernised pentathlon.

The identity of that event is to be resolved, through a series of working parties, by the end of the year, or perhaps in the first quarter of 2022.

Riding? Well that’s gone, as pentathletes around the world, and indeed their national federations, were summarily informed on Thursday (November 4) when the UIPM Executive Committee decision was - belatedly - communicated.

There will be no discussions on this point at the forthcoming UIPM Congress, where such a decision would require a two-thirds majority. A fait accompli…

Cue outrage. Cue uproar.

Social media has been thronged with agonised cries from the heart on behalf of bemused athletes.

The reaction of Britain’s men’s Olympic champion, Joe Choong, was both high-profile and emblematic.

"Let’s stop the UIPM destroying our sport," Choong tweeted.

"They must not be allowed to remove the riding element of modern pentathlon without discussing it with us athletes and its member nations!"

Georgina Harland, who took women’s bronze for Britain at the 2004 Athens Olympics and will be Team GB's Chef de Mission at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, was eloquent about a decision which she said had left her "bereft and disappointed."

She tweeted: "As part of the sport’s Athletes’ Commission between 2008 and 2014 I sat on the UIPM Executive Board and even at that time it was patently obvious that issues needed to be addressed with the equestrian discipline concerning horse welfare and the standards of riding.

"Despite many warnings and attempts to offer workable solutions and to the frustration of many of us, a lack of acknowledgement, care and understanding persisted.

"The result of this is the destruction of the sport from within, culminating in this week’s announcement.

"This moment could and should have been avoided.

"What hurts me most is the lack of consideration for the athletes - people that have dedicated their lives to the sport and people that are now facing the prospect of their careers ending prematurely without consultation or care.

"I write this from Great Britain at the point where we continue to celebrate two wonderful gold medal winners in Kate French and Joe Choong.

"To see their successes and futures, along with so many others, potentially diminished by this decision is an appalling dereliction of duty for those charged with developing our sport."

Riding - left to rot like an awkward council property earmarked for redevelopment.

On Friday (November 5), seismically, a group of 667 past and present pentathletes including Choong and Britain’s women’s Tokyo 2020 champion Kate French, the Czech Republic's London 2012 gold medallist David Svoboda, and Sydney 2000 bronze medallist Kate Allenby of Britain called for Schormann and the entire Executive Board to resign following a decision they described as having "undermined 109 years of modern pentathlon".

Allenby, who took bronze in the women’s modern pentathlon at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, told insidethegames about the mass action that accelerated excitingly last week.

"We started on the Monday (November 1) when we heard about the decision that was coming up - a group of past and present athletes," she said.

"When the news was confirmed on Thursday we had a small group but it just grew and grew. When we were getting athletes names together we had to move to Telegram because there we had reached capacity in our WhatsApp group.

"It was extraordinary to watch it all happen. The names just kept on pouring in - it was a real united voice. The pentathletes were like: ‘Yes, I want to be a part of it.’ And it just snowballed.

"We’ve got names from South Korea, Australia, Brazil, USA, Canada, Germany, Russia. We’ve got two groups running - one in English, one in Russian."

Whether it was in response to this huge uprising, or whether it was coincidental - who knows? - the UIPM returned with a new statement yesterday (November 6) saying it was "fully aware of the concerns voiced by current and former athletes relating to the Executive Board decision to replace riding in modern pentathlon."

There will be a consultation process.

"All opinions and ideas are welcome and will be fully taken on board for the fifth discipline discussion according to the announced criteria.

"As part of UIPM's normal democratic process, an electoral UIPM Congress will take place in three weeks on November 27 and 28, where member federations will have the opportunity to discuss and debate all motions on the agenda."

A consultation process, that is, over the new event. Not the riding.

Another message on Twitter this week was posted by Dominic Mahony, who won a team bronze for Britain at the 1988 Seoul Olympics along with Richard Phelps and Graham Brookhouse.

He quoted from the New Testament, Matthew 16:26: "What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?"

So is modern pentathlon about to lose its soul?

This testing amalgam of fencing, swimming, riding, shooting and running was created by de Coubertin in the image of the pentathlon which formed a centrepiece of the ancient Greek Games, and first took place at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

Each of the five original pentathlon events during the Ancient Olympics - long jumping, javelin throwing, discus throwing, foot-racing and wrestling - was intended to emphasise skills essential for soldiers of the time.

de Coubertin modernised this list with the idea of a 19^th century cavalry officer in mind. Reflecting on his choice a few years later, he wrote in his Olympic Memoirs (and thanks to colleague Philip Barker for this):

"I had already submitted the idea to the IOC on two previous occasions and my proposal had been greeted with a lack of understanding and almost hostility.

"This time however, the grace of the sporting holy ghost accepted an event to which I attached the greatest importance - a veritable consecration of the complete athlete.

"A foot race, horse race, a swimming race, fencing match and finally a shooting contest which I would have preferred to have been replaced by a rowing race, but this would have added to the difficulties of organisation which was already quite complicated enough.

"The order of these events is open to criticism the exhaustion of the nerves and muscles is not taken into consideration - it is not a good idea to end the competition with the two most exhausting events namely the equestrian and the foot race.

"We would suggest the following order - shooting, foot race, fencing, swimming, equestrian.

"There is only one truly logical and fair way to hold the equestrian event. That is to provide all the competitors with horses they have not had the opportunity to ride until that time and to send them out on to terrain with which they are not familiar."

One hundred and nine years down the line the view about fairness appears, to use the current vogue word, to have pivoted. The UIPM are now describing the process which De Coubertin regarded as the only "truly logical and fair way" to hold the riding event as being unfair. A lottery.

David Armstrong, chair of Pentathlon GB, is not so sure about that. "I think it’s just a great test of skill, actually, so I wouldn’t subscribe to that view," he told insidethegames. "But those are the phrases that are being used - accessibility, fairness.

"It was interesting to see that in announcing that decision the Board talked not only about the impact of the IOC steer but also the opportunity for the sport in moving to an alternative discipline as a way of making it more accessible.

"Of enabling countries and parts of the world where riding is not a common skill and access to horses that can jump one metre, 1.10 or 1.20, is impossible.

"There are probably only a limited number of countries in the world where there is a sufficient horse population. We are obviously one of those, and one of the leading ones, but that’s a limited pool."

Armstrong added: "The people I really feel for the most are the athletes, and particularly the generation that is coming through after the likes of Kate and Joe.

"Paris 2024 will still remain with riding, Kate and Joe, if they want to go on, will go on on that basis. But it’s the generation after that, who might have been preparing for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, who now face a very uncertain future. These are the people I worry about the most."

That is a sentiment with which Allenby, who in 2007 received an Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to sport and now teaches and coaches modern pentathlon events at a number of schools around the country, would heartily endorse.

Speaking of a conversation she had this week with some youngsters who had arrived within modern pentathlon from the same Pony Club, equestrian route which she had taken, Allenby said: "They looked me in the eye and they went: ‘What’s going on? Do you mean we won’t be able to ride? We love our riding.’

"And this is the situation that so many athletes are in. They have started their journey from here, they’re learning to ride, they’re loving the horses. And we’ve got to look these children in the eye and go: ‘It’s all changed.’

"I’m a teacher. And it’s about showing to these children - why should we just accept these things? It’s showing them a pathway, showing them resilience, and that if things don’t go your way you can at least stand up for yourself."

Reflecting upon the way the sport has sought recently to remain within the Olympic programme, she added: "Klaus Schormann and his Executive Board have come to the fore over the last 30 years. It was the same sport for almost a hundred years, and the changes that have gone through on his watch…until this one they haven’t changed the integrity of the sport.

"Schormann has always said to us: ‘Trust us, these are the right moves to make, we need to make these changes to keep the sport in the Olympics.’

"But this latest move changes the fundamentals of the sport entirely. We’ve trusted our sport to our President to represent us and work for us, and now he’s changed the integrity of the sport that was dreamt up by Pierre de Coubertin.

"And the athletes have had enough because the changes have trickled, trickled, trickled - ‘trust us, trust us, trust us’ - and now the changes are too big to keep their faith in him.

"We are in this position not because of our sport.

"We are in this position because of the bigger failures of the UIPM in terms of promoting and marketing the sport, all of these things have failed to happen steadily over the years.

"The IOC want ticketing numbers, they want TV viewers, they want sponsors, they want global participation. This is what our UIPM leaders have failed us with.

"The IOC come to the UIPM and say: ‘You haven’t got the numbers, you haven’t got social media reach, you haven’t got global participation, you haven’t got the TV views.’

"But this is not because of the sport, it’s because the UIPM management has failed to do its job."

Riding has already loosed its tether and fled over the horizon. What will replace it?

Cycling has long been viewed as a likely alternate. But those within the sport are keenly aware that this could open modern pentathlon to the charge of being triathlon with fencing and shooting bolted on.

Ironically, given de Coubertin’s original instinct, static rowing on ergos has also been run up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes it.

Among the 13 stipulations for the new fifth element put forward by UIPM last week was one that is causing some confusion within the sport - the new discipline must "not fall under the governance of another IOC-recognised International Federation."

This would appear to have narrowed the field dramatically, if not terminally. And the question raised - if this is the requirement, what about the other four modern pentathlon disciplines, which all fail to meet this requirement?

Like so much else in regard to this vexed topic, this question is left hanging...