There is very little that is modern about the UIPM, demonstrated by the secretive and opaque way the embattled organisation axed riding from its Olympic programme beyond Paris 2024 - which also provided a perfect example of a Federation that is outdated and out of touch with its athletes.

Such an archaic culture and structure comes from the top. UIPM President Klaus Schormann will be re-elected later this month, extending his tenure at the helm to at least 32 years.

Thirty-two years.

Schormann is the poster-boy for an argument in favour of term limits. Yes, some suggest that continuity is beneficial, but change brings new, refreshing ideas - which plenty of athletes and other observers feel the UIPM could desperately do with.

It is little wonder a host of athletes, including past and present Olympic champions, have issued a vote of no confidence in the German following the decision to replace riding as the sport’s fifth discipline at the Games.

The opinion of athletes, as is often the case in sport, have been barely a second thought, despite this change being perhaps the most fundamental alteration to modern pentathlon in decades.

They have been invited to a call with UIPM Executive Board members tomorrow, which is a positive step.

But these talks are simply too little, too late: the decision to remove riding has already been made, and there appears little athletes can do about it.

Competitors like Olympic men’s champion Joe Choong have even claimed they may quit the sport, such is the level of disagreement - and, in other circles, vitriol - aimed at the UIPM over the past week or so.

What remains unclear is what discipline it will be replaced with. Early rumours and suggestions it could be some form of cycling look to be wide of the mark - one member of the Movement joked to me that Schormann would arrive to a meeting in Lausanne this week on a mountain bike - and it will be interesting to see what comes in to fill the void.

Yet athletes, understandably given recent events, will be forgiven for not trusting the UIPM to get the next major decision right.

"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 [Schormann]," British Olympic modern pentathlon bronze medallist Kate Allenby told insidethegames.

Athletes such as Allenby are all too aware of the problems modern pentathlon is facing. The sport regularly occupies one of the bottom places on the league table produced by the IOC after the conclusion of the Olympics.

They lay the blame squarely at the feet of the UIPM. "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," Allenby added.

"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."

Not only was the process leading to the decision handled poorly, but the UIPM’s strategy since has been equally, if not more, ill-advised.

Schormann gave an interview to the German media outlet Sportschau, during which he said the fifth discipline had already been chosen.

A day later, the UIPM was forced to issue a statement denying that was the case, an embarrassing u-turn both for the President and the organisation itself.

Performing its typical behind-the-scenes-but-not-intervening role has been the IOC. In a briefing document sent to its Executive Board members, the UIPM said one of the driving factors in axing riding, aside from the horse-punching scandal at Tokyo 2020, was the IOC "would not accept a proposal for Los Angeles 2028" that included the discipline.

The IOC has suggested that is not the case and it is merely letting the UIPM's decision-making process run its course.

Is the UIPM using the IOC as an excuse to make the drastic change? Or is the IOC doing its usual backchanneling in the closed corridors of power to get what it wants? The reality is probably somewhere in between.

Worryingly for modern pentathletes, the UIPM has perhaps offered the IOC a golden opportunity to do what some believe it has been dying to for years - remove the sport from the Olympic programme in favour of a hip, youth-oriented alternative that Games fans will actually watch.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Federations, including the UIPM, have been in Lausanne for the past couple of days for a seminar with the IOC.

Top of the agenda was a debrief on Tokyo 2020, the format for which has been changed compared with previous Games. 

The IOC in September and October held "targeted" talks with Federations to determine "key outcomes" from Tokyo 2020, which were then more widely discussed during the two-day seminar.

Eagerly-awaited television results from the Olympics in the Japanese capital, used as one of the metrics to determine the size of each Federation's share of the broadcasting revenue, are due out in two weeks, according to one participant at the meeting.

It is expected that Federations entitled to a slice of the pie - the 28 core Olympic sports - will receive their second payment by the end of December, although the exact amount is still to be determined.

In a rare turn of events, it is believed the IOC admitted to Federations that it should have provided more certainty in the Tokyo 2020 playbooks much earlier than it did.

The IOC showing some acceptance that it could have done better? I really have seen it all.