“T“Today we salute our horses and the men and women who ride them,” says the announcer, announcing the semifinals of the women’s modern pentathlon in the historic city of Versailles, just outside Paris. The sport has been part of the Games for 112 years and its invention is generally attributed to Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement.

But at a Games currently packed with action sports that are missed in the blink of an eye and curated for a global television and social media audience, the Modern Pentathlon was deemed not modern enough. At the Paris Games, the previously five-day program of fencing, horse riding, swimming, running and shooting was compressed into a 90-minute spectacle.

But what the commentator was referring to was a far more significant change. In LA 2028, equestrianism is replaced by an obstacle course, echoing the broader cultural influence of television shows like Ninja Warrior. And so the event at Versailles represents the end of an era.

Australia’s only representative in Paris, Genevieve Janse van Rensburg – who was inspired to follow the sport as a child by meeting 2016 gold medallist Chloe Esposito – says it is a sad day. “For a lot of the older girls this is the end of their sport, it really changes everything. When I listen to my German friends, they know they have a stable that has been open all this time, they had a trainer for about 50 years and they are closing it down.”

Modern Pentathlon Australia president Maki Takken says the change has caused controversy in Australia. “Because our athletes predominantly come from pony clubs in Australia, there was widespread discontent,” she says.

When you stroll with thousands of fans across the well-kept squares outside Paris, this discontent is not immediately apparent. On a warm morning, 15,000 fans fill the makeshift stands by 10 a.m.

While the atmosphere is lively, it’s a world away from the sporting experiences that are the focus of these Games. Organizers have moved competitions like skateboarding, breakdancing and beach volleyball to the center of the city, forever linking the 2024 Olympics and Paris’s famous architecture with these sports, which could be considered even more modern than the Modern Pentathlon.

In the jumping phase of the first semi-final, there is neither the music nor the artificial crowd participation that was seen the day before during breakdancing or beach volleyball. Only when the inflatable fencing stage is ready does the DJ take on a larger role and the music fills the breaks between the fights. The presenter also does his best and explains why the athletes are fencing today even though they fenced yesterday. (Today is a bonus round.)

As well as being Australia’s only representative in the pentathlon, Janse van Rensburg is also the national champion in épée fencing. On Saturday she secured two wins, earning her a time bonus for the upcoming Laser Run, a 3km race punctuated by target shooting. “I’ve never seen a crowd like that at the pentathlon,” she said. There is a 10-minute break before the swim, before the athletes swim eight laps of the 25m pool. Janse van Rensburg strips down and wins her heat in just over two minutes, close to her personal best and the third-best time of the semi-finals.

Takken says the next version of the sport – which she predicts will soon drop the “modern” part of the name – is likely to see an influx of athletes. “People who were never interested in horse riding and would never have thought about pentathlon for that reason may now say, ‘This is actually a sport I could do.'”

Australia’s biggest sporting moment came in Rio, where Esposito won the country’s only Olympic medal. The former champion even wrote Janse van Rensburg a message of congratulations three weeks ago. “I saw her message and I just couldn’t reply at first because I was just a fangirl for two days,” she says.

In Saturday’s semifinal, the Australian finished a respectable 13th, narrowly missing out on a place in the final. With the future of the sport uncertain, this could be her first and last Olympic foray.

At the moment, however, the 20-year-old, who has been riding since she was a child, is only thinking about the graduation ceremony and a vacation. “The last few years have been very hectic, so I want to make sure that I know what I want to do before I commit to anything and that I just enjoy it.”

Now it’s the turn of the pentathlon, a sport that demands extreme adaptation from its athletes. “It has already evolved from a five-day sport to a one-day sport, and now it’s a sport that doesn’t even last 90 minutes,” says Takken. “It’s in the DNA of the sport that athletes are flexible, adaptable, resilient and self-reliant. While Versailles is in some ways the end of an era, I think it also marks a turning point in the pentathlon towards a different future. But I believe it has a future.”