Gold: Olympic Games 2012, World Championships 2013

Silver: World Championships 2009

Bronze: World Championships 2007, 2011

A true powerhouse of the sporting world, the mother of one is renowned for her iron will to win and she compiled a record score in winning the 2012 Olympics. A real combined event specialist.

Gold: World Championship 2007, 2008, 2010

With three victories in four years, Caze took a stranglehold over the World Championships scene and also flew the flag for France at three consecutive Olympic Games.

Silver: World Championships 2016

One of the emerging talents on the women’s scene, Clouvel is tall and strong and athletic. She set a world record for swimming at the 2016 World Championships.

Gold: Olympic Games 2000, World Championships 2001

The first female pentathlete to win sport’s ultimate prize, when she made history at Sydney in 2000. It inspired a new generation to take up the sport in Great Britain where there has been a steady supply of female champions ever since.

Gold: World Championships 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994

The advent of women’s pentathlon at the Olympics came four years too late for Denmark’s finest female competitor, who took part in fencing at Atlanta 1996. By then she was a four-time world champion for whom there was little left to achieve in pentathlon. Nobody has yet matched her record of world titles.

Gold: World Championships 1988

Silver: World Championships 1996

Bronze: World Championships 1990, 1992, 1993, 1995

Now a popular TV personality in Poland, Idzi stood six times on the women’s individual podium at the pinnacle of the sport. She announced herself with victory on home soil in Warsaw.

Gold: World Championships 2016

Silver: World Championships 2011

Another prototype from the production line of Hungarian pentathletes, Kovacs was an unexpected, but fully deserving, winner of the world title in 2016, in the same city of Moscow where she had previously won silver.

Silver: World Championships 1981

Bronze: World Championships 1984, 1986, 1987

Another athlete who seized the opportunity when the World Championships opened its doors to women, she had a number of exciting battles with the likes of the Soviet Union’s Irina Kiseleva and maiden world champion Anne Ahlgren from Sweden. She is now head of the Olympic Games Unit at the German Olympic Sports Confederation.

Silver: World Championships 2013

Bronze: Olympic Games 2012, World Championships 2015

A genuine trailblazer for modern pentathlon in Brazil and right across the Americas. One of Brazil’s great hopes for the Rio 2016 as an athlete who has proved that the big stage brings out the best in her.

Silver: World Championships 2008

She was not the first African woman to win a medal in the World Championships, that was her compatriot Omnia Fakhry. But Medany caught the imagination of the sporting world when she competed at the 2004 Olympics in Athens aged just 15. She attended three Olympic Games and won multiple African titles, as well as the IOC Women and Sport Award for Africa in 2014.

Gold: World Championships 2014

Silver: Olympic Games 2012

Bronze: World Championships 2012

As well as her success at the highest level, Murray has been decorated with gold medals at the 2015 World Cup Final and 2013 European Championships. A true champion and perennial contender.
 

Gold: World Championships 1989

Silver: World Championships 1990

These days she makes her living as an accomplished sculptor, but in the 1980s Norwood was the first real trailblazer for women’s pentathlon in the United States, winning the country’s first - and so far only – women’s world title in 1989.

Gold: World Laser-Run Championships 2015

Ahead of her third Olympic Games - she finished fourth in 2008 and sixth in 2012 - the experienced pentathlete is an expert combined eventer and she demonstrated her prowess by winning the first-ever laser-run crown.

Gold: World Championships 2009

Silver: World Championships 2012, 2014, 2015

A consistent performer at the highest level, she was Asia’s first female world champion and has led the continent’s pentathletes on a steady rise to prominence.

Gold: Olympic Games 2008, World Championships 2015

Silver: World Championships 2007

Bronze: World Championships 2009, 2010, 2016

Tall, athletic and determined, she has been one of the women to catch on the elite circuit for nearly a decade. Currently neck and neck with Lithuania’s Laura Asadauskaite with one Olympic, one World and two European titles to her name.

Gold: Olympic Games 2004, World Championships 1999, 2003, 2004

Silver: World Championships 1998, 2002, 2005

Hungary has a proud pentathlon heritage and Vörös enjoys her place in the pantheon having dominated the global women’s scene for a number of years. Her country awarded her the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit.

Gold: Olympic Games 1972, World Championships 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969

Silver: Olympic Games 1968, World Championships 1959, 1970

Bronze: World Championships 1961, 1971

One of the most successful pentathletes in history, few can match Balczó’s longevity, culminating in him winning the individual Olympic gold medal at Munich 1972 at the age of 34. He was the winner of a record five World Championship individual and five team titles, winning the individual championship consecutively from 1963-1969 (it was previously not held in Olympic years). Balczó was elected Hungarian Sportsman of the Year 1966, 1969 and 1972.

Gold: World Championships 2016

Conquered the world aged 23 in 2016, four years after winning the junior world title, suggesting that his star is very much on the rise.

Gold: World Championships 1987

Bronze: World Championships 1982

An individual world champion in 1987 and four-time Olympian, his influence on modern pentathlon has reverberated far beyond his own competitive career. A highly decorated figure in France with multiple honours, Bouzou continues to serve sport as vice-president of the UIPM and President of the World Olympians Association.

Consistent performances, including back-to-back gold medals at the 2016 World Cup, including the Final, ensured that he will enter the Olympic Games as the world number one. Won the junior world title in 2011.

Gold: Olympic Games 1920

Silver: Olympic Games 1924

An Olympic champion at Antwerp in 1920 and silver medallist at Paris four years later, Dyrssen also won a silver medal in the team épée fencing event at Berlin 1936, alongside Sven Thofelt, the 1928 Olympic pentathlon winner. He was the second President of the UIPM from 1949 until 1960, when he was succeeded by Thofelt.

Silver: World Championships 2014

The name El Geziry became a regular sight at the top of the leaderboard at world events in the mid-2010s. Partly because Amro’s brother Omar is another world-class athlete from the hothouse of emerging talent that is Egyptian pentathlon.

Fox is one of the most influential figures in the development of the sport in Britain. He won the British title record ten times and is the only British pentathlete to have competed in four Olympic Games. His fourth place in the individual event at Munich in 1972 was the best placing by a Briton up to that time. He followed that in Montreal four years later when he won a team gold medal with Danny Nightingale and Adrian Parker.

Gold: World Championships 2008

Silver: World Championships 2007

A man who has spent most of his career on the podium, especially at World Cups and European Championships.

Gold: Olympic Games 1952, 1956, World Championships 1950, 1951

The Swede made history with his victory at Helsinki in 1952 when he became the first civilian Olympic champion in the pentathlon. He arrived late for the pistol-shooting competition, but was saved from disqualification due to a protest that was still being sorted out. He also went on to win the gold medal at Melbourne in 1956.

Gold: World Laser-Run Championships 2015, World Biathle-Triathle Championships 2015

One of a golden generation of French pentathletes, he proved his versatility by winning two world titles on the UIPM sub-sport scene in the same year.

Gold: World Championships 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978

Silver: Olympic Games 1976, World Championships 1977

Bronze: Olympic Games 1980

Lednev competed at the 1968, 1972, 1976 and 1980 Olympics, and won a total of two gold medals, two silver medals and three bronze medals, more than any other pentathlete in history.

Gold: World Championships 2012, 2014

Silver: World Championships 2010, 2011, 2015, 2016

Bronze: World Championships 2013

One of those athletes with an incredible knack of producing his best form when the occasion demands, Lesun has scaled the podium at seven consecutive World Championships. He was fourth at London 2012 and will be seeking his first Olympic medal at Rio 2016.

Gold: World Championships 2009

Bronze: Olympic Games 2012, World Championships 2008, 2011

Having won junior world gold medal in 2004 he embarked on a long sequence of success, including multiple podium visits at world and European level. With an Olympic medal already in his back pocket he has every chance of repeating that feat at Rio 2016.

Gold: Olympic Games 2004, 2008, World Championships 2011

Silver: World Championships 2012

Bronze: World Championships 2005

The first pentathlete since Sweden’s Lars Hall at Melbourne in 1956 to win back-to-back Olympic titles, the double in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 was an astonishing achievement in an era of well-funded high performance programmes across the world.

Gold: World Championships 1979

A United States Air Force fighter pilot, Nieman competed in two Olympic Games, at Montreal 1976 and Seoul 1988, but his biggest achievement came in 1979 when he won the World Championships, making him the only American man to have ever claimed the individual title.

Gold: Olympic Games 1976, World Championships 1977, 1981

Silver: World Championships 1978, 1979

The Pole won the Olympic gold medal at Montreal in 1976 and a year later lifted the first of two world titles. He was elected Polish Sports Personality of the Year following that 1977 triumph and again in 1981 after his second World Championships gold medal. He is now head coach of the American team. In 2014 was recognised for "Extraordinary Contributions to the Olympic Movement" by the UIPM and the Polish Olympic Committee.

Gold: Olympic Games 2000, World Championships 1994, 1995

Silver: World Championships 1997

Bronze: World Championships 1999

Olympic gold in 2000 came as a real crowning glory for him. A winner of team silver as part of the Unified Team in Barcelona eight years previously, he enjoyed a glittering career in the sport and won back-to-back world titles in the mid-1990s. He has been President of the European Modern Pentathlon Federation since 1996 and is also the Deputy Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.

Gold: Olympic Games 2012

Silver: World Championships 2008, 2009

He went into the Olympics at Beijing 2008 as a favourite for a medal but finished only 28th. He put that disappointment behind him four years later at London 2012 to win the gold medal. Since then Svoboda, who is in the Czech Army and studying PE at Charles University in Prague, has suffered with injuries but hopes to defend his title at Rio 2016.

Gold: Olympic Games 1928

The Swede was also a talented fencer who followed his pentathlon gold medal at Amsterdam in 1928 with silver and bronze in team épée at Berlin 1936 and London 1948. He was an adjutant of King Gustav V. He also served as a sports administrator, in 1948 becoming secretary general of the UIPM and serving as its President from 1960 to 1988. He was also President of the Swedish Fencing Federation and of the Swedish Olympic Committee. Between 1970 and 1976 Thofelt was an IOC member and later an IOC honorary member.

Gold: Olympic Games 1964

Silver: World Championships 1963

Bronze: World Championships 1962, 1965, 1966

Winner of the Olympic gold medal at Tokyo in 1964, Török triumphed in the absence of team-mate András Balczó, who missed the Games after being sent to jail by the Hungarian Government for smuggling watches from the West. Török was voted Hungary’s Sportsman of the Year following his victory.

Gold: World Championships 2015

Underlined his promise with a seventh place at the 2008 Olympics and matured steadily until taking the sport’s biggest annual prize aged 28. Named Ukraine’s Sports Person of the Year in 2016.
 

Gold: World Championships 2000, 2004

Silver: Olympic Games 2004

Bronze: Olympic Games 2008, World Championships 1996, 2006

The Lithuanian showed remarkable consistency, winning Olympic and silver medals at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008, as well as being crowned world champion in 2000 and 2004. In 2009 he married modern Laura Asadauskaitė, winner of the Olympic gold at London 2012. They have daughter who was born in 2010 – surely a champion pentathlete of the future?

Silver: Olympic Games 2012

The first Asian to win an Olympic pentathlon medal, at London in 2012, the Chinese has enjoyed considerable career longevity, qualifying for his third Games at Rio 2016 at the age of 35.