Horses used for Show jumping at Olympic Modern Pentathlon

A show jumper must have the scope and courage to jump large fences as well as the athletic ability to handle the sharp turns and bursts of speed necessary to navigate the most difficult courses. Many breeds of horses have been successful show jumpers, and even some grade horses of uncertain breeding have been champions.

Most show jumpers are tall horses, over 16 hands 64 inches, 163 cm, usually of Warm blood or Thoroughbred breeding, though horses as small as 14.1 hands 57 inches, 145 cm have been on the Olympic teams of various nations and carried riders to Olympic and other international medals. There is no correlation between the size of a horse and its athletic ability, nor do tall horses necessarily have an advantage when jumping. Nonetheless, a taller horse may make a fence appear less daunting to the rider.

Ponies also compete in show jumping competitions in many countries, usually in classes limited to youth riders, defined as those under the age of 16 or 18 years, depending on the sanctioning organization. Pony sized horses may, on occasion, compete in open competition with adult riders.

The most famous example was Stroller, who only stood 14.1 hands 57 inches, 145 cm but was nonetheless an Individual silver medal winner and part the United Kingdom's show jumping team in the 1968 Summer Olympics, jumping one of the few clean rounds in the competition. You can also purchase Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets from Sport Ticket Exchange at very reasonable rates. Sport Ticket Exchange offers you Olympic Tickets for all Olympic sports and events especially Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets in very easy and secure way.

Pistol and Ammo used in Olympic Modern Pentathlon Shooting

Pre charged pneumatic (PCP) air guns are usually filled by decanting from an air reservoir, such as a diving cylinder or by charging directly with a hand pump. Because of the need for cylinders or charging systems, PCP guns have higher initial costs but very low operating costs compared to CO₂ guns. These guns are often used for hunting purposes in countries with restrictive firearms laws. A distinction is sometimes made between true PCP guns and high pressure air (HPA) guns. The distinction being that true PCP guns are an integrated high pressure design while an HPA application is an adaptation of a high pressure, regulated air supply to function with components not designed for high pressure e.g. CO₂guns. The RWS/ Hamelin 850 is a CO₂ designed gun, which is often adapted to HPA.

PCP guns have very low recoil and can fire as many as 500 shots per charge. The ready supply of air has allowed the development of semi-automatic and fully automatic PCP air guns. PCP guns are very popular in the UK and Europe because of their accuracy and ease of shooting. They are widely utilized in ISSF 10 meter air pistol shooting events and the sport of Field Target shooting and fitted with telescopic sights.

Earlier hand pumps for charging carried with them problems of fatigue both human and mechanical, temperature warping, and condensation. None of those is beneficial to good shooting or the longevity of the rifle. Modern hand pumps have built-in air filtration systems and have overcome many of these problems. Using scuba-quality air decanted from a scuba cylinder also provides a clean, dry, high pressure air supply that is consistent and available at low cost.

An air gun pellet is, for the most part, a non-spherical projectile designed to be fired from an air gun. But this is not always the case. Pellets differ from bullets used in firearms because of the pressures encountered; firearms operate at pressures of thousands of atmospheres, while air guns operate at pressures as low as 50 atmospheres.

 Firearms have sufficient pressure to force a slightly over-sized bullet to fit the bore in order to form a tight seal, while air guns generally use a slightly undersized projectile that is designed to obdurate upon shooting so as to seal the bore, and engage the rifling. Since pellets may be shot through a smoothbore barrel, they are often designed to be inherently stable, much like the Foster slugs used in smoothbore shotguns. You can buy Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets from Sport Ticket Exchange at very cheap rates. Sport Ticket Exchange offers you Olympic Tickets for all Olympic sports and events especially Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets in very secure, easy way at reasonable rates.

Pistol Shooting at Olympic Modern Pentathlon

A shooting sport is a competitive sport involving tests of proficiency accuracy and speed using various types of guns such as firearms and air guns see archery for more information on shooting sports that make use of bows and arrows. Hunting is also a shooting sport, and indeed shooting live pigeons was an Olympic event albeit only once, in 1900. The shooting sports are categorized by the type of firearm or target used.

Pistols are smaller than rifles, and are much more convenient to carry in general. They usually have a shorter range and lesser accuracy compared to rifles. The 6 ISSF shooting events with pistols 4 Olympic events plus 2 events not included in the Olympics program but are contested in World Cups and World Championships, its roots date back to the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, consist of both precision slow-fire and rapid fire target shooting from distances of 10, 25, and 50 meters.

The pistols are unique in appearance compared to normal guns and each event has its own pistols designed specifically for the job. Shooters must use one hand only to shoot at small "bulls eye(s)" downrange. In the UK, it is no longer possible to practice for some of the Olympic events following the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997.

Modern pentathlon includes timed shooting with an air pistol as the first of its five parts. You can also purchase Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets from Sport Ticket Exchange at very reasonable rates. Sport Ticket Exchange offers you Olympic Tickets for all sports and events especially Modern Pentathlon Tickets in very easy and secure way.

Great Britain at 2008 Olympic Modern Pentathlon

Great Britain competed at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. The United Kingdom was represented by the British Olympic Association (BOA), and the team of selected athletes was officially known as Team GB. Britain is one of only five NOCs to have competed in every Summer Olympic Games since 1896. The delegation of 547 people included 311 competitors 168 men, 143 women and 236 officials. The team was made up of athletes from the whole United Kingdom including Northern Ireland whose people may elect to hold Irish citizenship and are able to be selected to represent either Great Britain or Ireland at the Olympics. Additionally some British overseas territories compete separately from Britain in Olympic competition.

Great Britain's medal performance at the 2008 Summer Olympics was its best in a century; only its performance at the 1908 Summer Olympics, which Britain also hosted in London, resulted in more gold medals being awarded. The total medal count, of 47, is also the second highest Great Britain has ever achieved, with only the 1908 Games resulting in more medals.

Great Britain finished 4th overall in the medal tables, a target previously set by UK Sport, the public body responsible for distributing funding to elite sport, for the 2012 Games. UK Sport is currently considering whether to target 3rd place in the 2012 Games, which will be hosted by the United Kingdom in London.  You can buy Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets from Sport Ticket Exchange at very cheap rates. Sport Ticket Exchange offers you all Olympic Tickets including Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets in very secure, easy way at reasonable rates.

Sheila Taormina and Olympic Modern Pentathlon

Sheila Taormina was born on March 18, 1969 in Livonia, Michigan. She is an Olympic athlete from the United States, who has competed at 4 Olympics 1996–2008 and was the first woman to qualify for the Olympics in 3 different sports swimming, triathlon and modern pentathlon. At the 1996 Olympics, she earned a gold medal as a member of the USA's winning women's 4 x 200 meter freestyle relay team.

While swimming collegiately for the Georgia Bulldogs, Taormina earned a BBA in 1992 and an MBA in 1994 from the University of Georgia. She captained Georgia's 1991 team, won All America honors all four years of her collegiate career and won the Southeastern Conference 400-meter individual medley as senior. She was the first UGA swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal and the first UGA athlete to make the Olympic team in multiple sports. Sheila handed her gold medal to her twin brother after becoming the Olympics champion, and he dropped it to the floor and some parts of it are rotten. Taormina competed at the first Olympic triathlon at the 2000 Summer Olympics. She took sixth place with a total time of 2:02:45.91. Her split times were 19:02.78 for the swim, 1:06:24.30 for the cycling, and 0:37:18.83 for the run. In 2004, Taormina won the ITU Triathlon World Championship title while residing in Clermont, Florida. In the 2004 Summer Olympics, Taormina again competed in the triathlon. Her time was 2:09:21.08 as she finished in twenty-third place.

Post-Athens, Taormina embarked on a new sport, modern pentathlon, winning the women's senior division of the 2005 Pan American Championships. She was successful in qualifying for the 2008 Olympic Games in the modern pentathlon, making her the first female athlete to qualify for the Olympics in three different sports. Taormina finished 19th in the 2008 Olympic event. You can also purchase Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets from Sport Ticket Exchange at very reasonable rates. Sport Ticket Exchange offers you all sorts of Olympic Tickets especially Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets in very easy and secure way. 

Cross Country Running at Olympic Modern Pentathlon

Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically 4–12 kilometers long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road. It is both an individual and a team sport, as runners are judged on an individual basis and a points scoring method for teams. Both men and women of all ages compete in cross country, which usually takes place during autumn and winter, and can include weather conditions of rain, sleet, snow or hail, and a wide range of temperatures. Cross country running is one of the disciplines under the umbrella sport of athletics, and cross country athletes often compete in long-distance track and road running. Although open-air running competitions are pre-historic, the rules and traditions of cross country racing emerged in Britain. The English championship became the first national competition in 1876 and the International Cross Country Championships was held for the first time in 1903. Since 1973 the foremost elite competition has been the IAAF World Cross Country Championships.

Because of differences between courses in running surface, frequency and tightness of turns, and amount of up and downhill, cross country strategy does not necessarily simplify to running a steady pace from start to finish. Coaches and cross country runners debate the relative merits of fast starts to get clear of the field, versus steady pacing to maximize physiological efficiency. Some teams emphasize running in a group in order to provide encouragement to others on the team, while others hold that every individual should run his or her own race.

Cross country was contested as a team and individual event at the 1904, 1912, 1920 and 1924 Summer Games. A United States team won the gold medal for cross country in the 1904 Olympics. Sweden took gold in 1912.Finland, led by Paavo Nurmi and captured the gold medal in 1920 and 1924 before the Olympics dropped cross country from its program. Cross Country running is fifth part of Olympic Modern Pentathlon. You can buy Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets from Sport Ticket Exchange at very cheap rates. Sport Ticket Exchange offers you Olympic Tickets for all Olympic sports and events especially Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets in very secure and easy way at reasonable rates.

Show Jumping at Olympic Modern Pentathlon

 Show jumping, also known as "stadium jumping," "open jumping," or "jumpers," is a member of a family of English riding equestrian events that also includes dressage, eventing, hunters, and equitation. Jumping classes commonly are seen at horse shows throughout the world, including the Olympics. Sometimes shows are limited exclusively to jumpers, sometimes jumper classes are offered in conjunction with other English style events, and sometimes show jumping is but one division of very large, all-breed competitions that include a very wide variety of disciplines. Jumping classes may be governed by various national horse show sanctioning organizations, such as the United States Equestrian Federation in the USA. International competitions are governed by the rules of the Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI).

People unfamiliar with horse shows may be confused by the difference between hunter classes and jumper classes. Hunters are judged subjectively on the degree to which they meet an ideal standard of manners, style, and way of going. Conversely, jumper classes are scored objectively, based entirely on a numerical score determined only by whether the horse attempts the obstacle, clears it, and finishes the course in the allotted time. Jumper courses often are colorful, and at times, quite creatively designed. Jumper courses tend to be much more complex and technical than hunter courses, because riders and horses are not being judged on style.

Hunters have meticulous turnout and tend toward very quiet, conservative horse tack and rider attire. Hunter bits, bridles, crops, spurs, and martingales are tightly regulated. Jumpers, while caring for their horses and grooming them well, are not scored on turnout, are allowed a wider range of equipment, and riders may wear less conservative attire, so long as it stays within the rules. Formal turnout always is preferred, however, and a neat rider gives a good impression at shows.

In addition to hunters and jumpers, there are equitation classes, sometimes called hunt seat equitation, which judge the ability of the rider. The equipment, clothing, and fence styles used in equitation more closely resemble hunter classes, although the technical difficulty of the courses may more closely resemble jumping events. You can also purchase Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets from Sport Ticket Exchange at very reasonable rates. Sport Ticket Exchange offers you all Olympic Tickets especially Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets in very easy and secure way.

Swimming at Olympic Modern Pentathlon

Swimming is a sport governed by the Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA). Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 CE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873, Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native Americans. Due to a British disregard for splashing, trudgen employed a scissor kick instead of the front crawl's flutter kick. Swimming was part of the first modern Olympic games in Athens in 1896. In 1902, Richard Cavill introduced the front crawl to the Western world. In 1908, the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA), which is the current governing body of the swimming world, was formed. The butterfly stroke was developed in the 1930s and was at first a breaststroke variant, until it was accepted as a separate style in 1952.

In 1912, Fanny Durack (of Australia) became the first female to win an Olympic gold medal, for the 100-yard freestyle.

Competitive swimming became popular in the nineteenth century. The goal of competitive swimming is to constantly improve upon one's time(s), or to beat the competitors in any given event. However, some professional swimmers who do not hold a national or world ranking are considered the best in regard to their technical skills. Typically, an athlete goes through a cycle of training in which the body is overloaded with work in the beginning and middle segments of the cycle, and then the workload is decreased in the final stage as the swimmer approaches the competition in which he or she is to compete in. This final stage is often referred to as "shave and taper"; the swimmer has tapered down his or her workload to be able to perform at their optimal level. At the very end of this stage, before competition, the swimmer shaves off all exposed hair for the sake of reducing drag and having a sleeker and more hydrodynamic feel in the water.

Swimming is an event at the Summer Olympic Games, where male and female athletes compete in 16 of the recognized events each. Olympic events are held in a 50 meter pool, called a long course pool. You can also purchase Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets from Sport Ticket Exchange at very reasonable rates. Sport Ticket Exchange offers you Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets in very easy and secure way. Sport Ticket Exchange is the point which offers all types of London Olympic Tickets including Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets at affordable price.

Fencing at Olympic Modern Pentathlon

Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons. aFencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games.

The English term fencing, in the sense of "the action or art of using the sword scientifically" (OED) dates to the late 16th century, when it denoted systems designed for the Renaissance rapier. The first known use of defens in reference to Renaissance swordsmanship is in William Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor: "Alas sir, I cannot fence." This specialized usage replaced the generic fight.

The verb to fence derived from the noun fence, originally meaning "the act of defending", etymologically derived from Old French defens "defense", ultimately from the Latin. The first attestation of Middle English fens "defense" dates to the 14th century

Dueling went into sharp decline after World War I. After World War II, dueling went out of use in Europe except for very rare exceptions. Training for duels, once fashionable for males of aristocratic backgrounds although fencing masters such as Hope suggest that many people considered themselves trained from taking only one or two lessons, all but disappeared, along with the classes themselves. Fencing continued as a sport, with tournaments and championships. However, the need to actually prepare for a duel with "sharps" vanished, changing both training and technique.

Starting with epee in 1936, side judges were replaced by an electrical scoring apparatus, with an audible tone and a red or green light indicating when a touch landed. Foil was automated in 1956, sabre in 1988. The scoring box reduced the bias in judging, and permitted more accurate scoring of faster actions, lighter touches, and more touches to the back and flank than before.

Olympic fencing refers to the fencing seen in most current competitions, including the Olympic Games and the World Cup. Competitions are conducted according to rules laid down by the FIE, the international governing body. These rules evolved from a set of conventions developed in Europe between mid 17th and early 20th century. The three Olympic weapons are foil, epee, and sabre. In competition, the validity of touches is determined by the electronic scoring apparatus and a set of rules called right of way or priority to eliminate referee error and bias. You can also purchase Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets from Sport Ticket Exchange at very reasonable rates. Sport Ticket Exchange offers you all Olympic Tickets especially Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets in very easy and secure way. You can also earn charming money with Olympic Tickets Resale at Sport Ticket Exchange.

Shooting at Olympic Modern Pentathlon

A shooting sport is a competitive sport involving tests of proficiency accuracy and speed using various types of guns such as firearms and air guns. Hunting is also a shooting sport, and indeed shooting live pigeons was an Olympic event. The shooting sports are categorized by the type of firearm or target used.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) of the United Kingdom was founded in 1860 to raise the funds for an annual national rifle meeting "for the encouragement of Volunteer Rifle Corps, and the promotion of Rifle-shooting throughout Great Britain".

For similar reasons, concerned over poor marksmanship during the American Civil War, veteran Union officers Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate formed the National Rifle Association of America in 1871 for the purpose of promoting and encouraging rifle shooting on a "scientific" basis. In 1872, with financial help from New York State, a site on Long Island, the Creed Farm, was purchased for the purpose of building a rifle range. Named Creedmoor, the range opened in 1872, and became the site of the first National Matches until New York politics forced the NRA to move the matches to Sea Girt, New Jersey. The popularity of the National Matches soon forced the event to be moved to its present, much larger location: Camp Perry. In 1903, the U.S. Congress created the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice (NBPRP), an advisory board to the Secretary of the Army, with a nearly identical charter to the NRA. The NBPRP (now known as the Civilian Marksmanship Program) also participates in the National Matches at Camp Perry.

In the Olympic Modern Pentathlon, the shooting discipline involves using a 4.5 mm air pistol in the standing position from 10 meters distance at a stationary target. Until the 2008 rules change, the format was that of the 10 meter air pistol competition: each competitor had 20 shots, with 40 seconds allowed for each shot. You can also purchase Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets from Sport Ticket Exchange at very reasonable rates. Sport Ticket Exchange offers you all sorts of Olympic Tickets including Olympic Modern Pentathlon Tickets in very easy and secure way.