The woman who must do it all — and do it well

For Pierre de Coubertin, it embodied all the skills needed to be more than just a top athlete, but a perfect cavalry soldier.

He’d studied how the ancient Olympics were created around the strengths of a Greek warrior and this was his way of updating those strengths and building a deeper sense of continuity. So it was that in 1912, his modern pentathlon first took place in his modern Olympics and was a simulation of being behind enemy lines where you had to ride a horse you’d never sat on, fight with a pistol and with a sword and be able to excel when it came to both running and swimming.

Exactly a century on and those skills have brought Natalya Coyle to our attention. She’s Ireland’s first qualifier in the sport since Moscow and she’s Ireland’s very last competitor this time around at what has been our most successful Games since Melbourne. It’s quite a step up for the girl who was found to have potential at the Pony Club and whose journey to this point truly started “when I had a sword put in my hand and I started going up and down a room stabbing people — that wasn’t the best way to start an Olympic campaign but that’s when it did begin”.