Retirement is not a word that means much to Olympian Ed Fernon. The first-time the modern pentathlete hung up his riding boots, sword and pistol, after failing to qualify for the 2016 Games, he climbed the highest mountain in the southern hemisphere (Argentina’s Aconcagua, at 6,960m) and won the world’s longest horse race, the Mongol Derby. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that it did not take much to lure him out of retirement for another crack at the Olympic discipline of modern pentathlon.
“Out of the blue, three months before the Tokyo trials, I got a call from my old coach saying I should make a comeback,” Fernon says. “I was heading into a business meeting and didn’t think much of it. But he kept calling me. Eventually I decided to train hard for six weeks to compete in the New Zealand championships to see what would happen. I won that competition, was selected in the Australian team for the Tokyo trials. I went over there, competed well and got the spot. It was quite the whirlwind journey.”
Whirlwind is certainly an apt description for Fernon. Just 33, the New South Welshman runs a property development company and has two young children. Since qualifying for Tokyo, Fernon has been juggling his professional and personal commitments with an intensive training schedule. “It’s an ongoing challenge,” he says. “I’m just trying to work two or three hours a day to keep the ship a float – I’m lucky to have good people around me who can assist.”
Fernon was one of the first Australians to be picked for the Tokyo Olympics, after competing in a selection event in Wuhan in November 2019. He departed the Chinese city just a month before the first Covid-19 cases. “Because I had just been there, I started following it very early,” he says.
While other athletes have had their preparations for Tokyo disrupted by the pandemic, Fernon has been able to focus on training over the past year. “I was already selected by that stage, so I didn’t need to do anything to keep my spot,” he says. Living on a farm near Yass in rural NSW, Fernon had the perfect training environment. “I was training Rocky-style,” he says. “I built a showjumping arena at the farm, made a little fencing set up in the garage, I was shooting from the veranda and went running down the road. It was great to have the support of the local pool, too, where I was swimming. I was incredibly fortunate.”
Although uncertainty still lingers over the Games, with increasing vocal disapproval among the Japanese population, Fernon is confident he will be flying to Tokyo in eight weeks’ time. “Some people ask me [about cancellation] and I just discard it straight away,” he says. “The media has drummed up whether it is happening or not, but when you have discussions with the people who actually know what is going on, it is absolutely certain that it will proceed. And as an athlete, even if there was a 1% chance it won’t go ahead, you can’t think like that. You just have to stay completely focused on the job at hand.”
The word pentathlon is derived from Greek, a combination of five (penta) and competition (athlon). The original pentathlon was a hallmark of the ancient Greek Olympics; a combination of wrestling, sprinting, javelin, discus and long jump, the event was considered a test of the athletic attributes needed by soldiers. The modern equivalent has featured at every Olympics since 1912.
While the sport’s format has evolved over the decades, it has retained its multi-disciplinary quality. In Tokyo, Fernon and his counterparts will compete in a fencing round-robin with an épée sword, followed by a 200-metre freestyle swim. Competitors are then paired with a random horse and, after just 20 minutes of bonding, have to ride through a show-jumping course. Finally, athletes take part in a “laser-run” – three laps of a kilometre-long course, with a round of pistol-shooting at the beginning of each. This final event has a timed start based on points scored in the earlier events, meaning that the first-person to cross the line is the overall winner.
The variety makes training an interesting proposition. “It is a very difficult sport,” says Fernon. “I think the most interesting part is that you have athletes coming from all different backgrounds. Some are very strong swimmers, others are athletics-focused. That means that everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. For me, at the moment I am doing two to three training session a day, focusing on fencing and the running and shooting event – which is probably one of the most important, given it is the final event and it can be make-or-break.”
Naturally athletic as a child, Fernon played cricket and rugby and ran cross-country during high school. With a friend owning a farm near Wagga Wagga, he also did some horse-riding. “I loved riding the horses down there during school holidays,” he says. But it was not until his university years that Fernon came upon the sport of modern pentathlon.
“I was 19 years old, at university, living on campus, out most nights, drinking and carrying on like a young person does,” he recalls, somewhat sheepishly. “I felt like my life didn’t have much meaning – and I was just looking for a challenge. My uncle suggested I try modern pentathlon – I didn’t even know what it was.” Fernon came across Daniel Esposito, who represented Australia in the sport at the 1984 Olympics, and is the father of Chloe Esposito, who won gold in 2016.
“I remember I met with him and he said: ‘It’s too hard a sport to just give it a go – you need to 100% commit, that you’re going to go to the Olympics,’” says Fernon. “At that stage I had never picked up a pistol, never picked up a fencing sword and was a terrible swimmer – so it was pretty daunting to hear that. But it was the best advice. I made a very clear decision that while I was at university, I was going to invest my spare time in qualifying for the London Olympics.”
Qualify he did, finishing 27th at the 2012 Games. “It was a great honour to represent my country,” Fernon says. But after spending his life savings travelling the world to compete (“I came back a very poor man,” he says), and starting a business as a result, his commitment to the sport began to wane.
“The training is so full on – I was just fatigued,” he says. “I went to the Rio trials, didn’t perform well, and just reached a point where my mind and body wasn’t in it. I’d lost my passion for it. So after I didn’t qualify for Rio I gave it up and didn’t think I’d ever come back.” Not that he wasn’t looking for a challenge – he climbed Mount Aconcagua and won the Mongol Derby in the subsequent years.
“You’ve got to make life interesting,” he says. “You have to challenge yourself, put yourself in uncomfortable environments, because that’s the only way to really learn and grow as a person. All of these things are ways for me to learn about myself, to push myself. I fail a lot, but failure is part of the process.”
Part of the challenge of modern pentathlon in Australia is an absence of funding. While the sport was given a major boost when Esposito won gold at the Rio Olympics, Fernon says that has not led to sustained interest and support.
“Chloe is an amazing person – she went and won an Olympic gold medal – but a few years on she can’t get sponsors, the support isn’t there for her,” says Fernon. “I think people are a bit more aware of modern pentathlon [post-2016], but we don’t have proper structures – there isn’t the funding, unlike overseas where all the athletes are full-time professionals. You still have to do it all yourself.”
But Fernon remains optimistic that this might change. “No doubt there’s been a lot of interest [since Esposito’s win] and there are some great young kids who are incredibly keen,” he says. “Maybe if we’re successful with the 2032 bid for the Brisbane Olympics, potentially more funding might come into Olympic sports and we can grow.”
Post-Tokyo, Fernon intends to retire – again. “My wife is due with our third child about a week after I get home, so my priority will be back to the family,” he says. “I’ll be hanging up the boots, the sword, the pistol and looking forward to being a dad and running the business again.”
It is unlikely, though, that this is the last we’ll hear of Ed Fernon. “There’ll be something, there’s always something,” he says. “There is nothing on the horizon yet, but my motto is to excel in life’s adventure. I’m always interested in ways I can put myself in uncomfortable situations and new challenges. This won’t be the last thing I ever do, I can tell you that much.”
