Latest news with #RobStull
Forbes
19-05-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
For The 2028 Olympics, Modern Pentathlon Has Gone ‘Ninja Warrior'
With a hip new obstacle racing event and a prime place on the L.A. Olympics schedule, modern pentathlon is suddenly cool again. It's been a while, frankly. A century after Pierre de Coubertin conjured up five tests of good modern soldiering — fencing, swimming, running, shooting, and horseback riding — and made the whole thing an Olympic sport, modern pentathlon has seemed a bit antiquated. But the sport has gotten a makeover, and the sport is already noticing the effects. 'Horses out, Ninja Warrior in,' the Associated Press summed it up. In effect, obstacle course racing has replaced equestrian show jumping as one of modern pentathlon's five events. The other four are still based on skills a good overall soldier needed to possess circa 1912. Obstacle course racing, which does has military origins, slots right in. 'Our athletes are the most versatile athletes in the Games,' proclaimed Rob Stull, president of the International Union of Modern Pentathlon, the sport's governing body known by its French acronym UIPM. That versatility has included athletes accepting the change after some initial consternation — among others, Tokyo Olympic champion Joe Choong of Great Britain was one of the leaders of the opposition. Despite indicating that he would retire with the horses in Paris last summer, Choong has remained in the sport. 'We have to accept it or move on,' he told the BBC earlier this year. While he acknowledges that obstacle racing is 'fun,' Choong is still warming to it. 'It's definitely something I'm going to get stuck in with and crack on with, but I'm not sure relishing is quite the word," he said. Stull, a three-time Olympian and self-described 'horse guy' who grew up on a farm outside Washington D.C., understands. In the end, modern pressures, such as the cost of transporting horses, an unsavory incident at the Tokyo Olympics where a coach allegedly punched a horse, and the need to draw a wider TV audience combined to force UPIM's hand. The new event, a 70 meter course with eight obstacles that elite athletes are clearing in 25-35 adrenaline-packed seconds, debuted in World Cup competition earlier this year. So far things have been going relatively well, at least by one metric. 'I don't get pelted with tomatoes when I show up at events,' Stull said. 'More than anything, I get a lot of thank yous.' For a federation trying to draw attention amidst the pomp of an Olympics, obstacle course racing checks several boxes. The discipline has big name recognition thanks to Ninja Warrior, the Japanese TV show that became a global phenomenon and spawned adaptations in more than 160 countries. (The original Japanese show, Sasuke, is still on.) Taking that and combining it with the Olympics is 'a no-brainer,' said David Hill, the former Fox Sports Chairman in a promotional video released by UIPM. 'It takes modern pentatlon from being virtually unwatchable straight to prime time.' Stull defers to official nomenclature, but has been known to trade on the TV designation when describing the new event. 'The easiest thing for me to say is 'ninja,' because that's really what we're much more in line with,' he said. 'The second you say that, people understand what you're talking about.' Obstacle course wasn't the guaranteed winner when UIPM opened itself up to proposals for a new event. The federation was inundated with ideas — a total of 62 crossed his desk, Stull says. We'll never know just how close we came to having pillow fighting in the Olympics. (Stull: 'I thought it was a joke when it was submitted, but it's not. And if you watch it, they really beat the crap out of each other.') Cyclocross, where competitors ride but also carry their bikes as they navigate obstacles, was a more viable candidate, though the needle eventually landed on obstacle. The change was approved by the International Olympic Committee, which governed modern pentathlon itself until 1948. While the IOC did not push UIPM toward ninja, Stull says, it made it clear to UIPM leadership that something needed to change. 'The IOC tries to remain neutral, but they were certainly sending the messages that we needed to innovate the sport,' Stull said. 'They didn't tell us to pick obstacle. They just knew that the equestrian piece was a challenge for us and would not allow us to have the accessibility or fit into the cost model moving forward. We had that challenge in front of us, and we needed to bail ourselves out.' The new event has contributed to giving the sport a new lease on life. It has been added to the LA 2028 sports, and modern pentathlon will be contested during the opening days of the Games, when the world's attention tends to be riveted on the Olympics but when most sports are still deep in preliminary competition. 'We'll have our two medals out in the first four days. So yes, that'll help us. We have an extra day of broadcasting — that'll help us,' Stull said. So will modern pentatlon's proximity to urban sports like BMX and 3x3 basketball. It's the Olympic equivalent of finding yourself eating at the same cafeteria table as the popular people in high school. 'We're with the cool kids,' Stull affirmed proudly. This is an improvement from recent Olympiads, when modern pentathlon was held in the Games's waning days. 'That's a big deal for us, because when you're at the end of the Games, you're competing against sports like the men's gold medal basketball game,' Stull said. That new athletes may be drawn to modern pentathlon via obstacle racing is another obvious perk. While there is no discussion about replacing any other event, Stull feels there is still some tweaking to be done to optimize obstacle. For example, no one to date has failed to scale the wall in competition, and Stull wants to see the finish wall raised to make the final moments of the race even more spectacular. But those are small things. The foundation for the future has been laid. What would de Coubertin think about it all? 'He would say, 'you're welcome,'' Stull said. An innovator himself, the baron 'absolutely would have recognized the need for change.'
Boston Globe
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Rob Stull, comic book creator and MFA artist-in-residence, dies at 58
'I didn't aspire like other young kids to be an actor, or an athlete,' he said in Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Advertisement 'We're incredibly saddened by the passing of visionary Boston artist Rob Stull,' The museum praised his original drawings that were displayed in the museum's galleries, saying that 'as artist-in-residence at the MFA, Rob created a visual response to our 2020–2021 exhibition Advertisement At the MFA, Mr. Stull also cocreated with When the giant banners of Mr. Stull's work were unveiled at the museum entrance, according to the MFA, Mr. Stull said that 'artists work their entire life to get this level of acknowledgment and respect. I'm over the moon.' In the School of the Museum of Fine Arts interview, posted online in 2021, he said there was a generational context to pursuing his calling. 'Art was like a family business,' he said. 'My father is a retired architect and was the founder of the oldest Black-owned firm in this part of the country.' One uncle was a ceramicist, and another taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, he said, 'so there was always art hanging on the walls of our home when I was a child.' He said he was welcomed into a community of artists 'at an age where I didn't fully understand how important it was to have access to artists like them. I was always drawing as a result of that.' Beginning three decades ago, he created and curated 'Sequential Art: The Next Step, 'a first-of-its-kind traveling exhibit spotlighting the contributions of African-Americans to mainstream comic book art and popular culture,' he said on his website. Advertisement 'The exhibit's mission was to increase the understanding, appreciation and awareness of sequential art,' Mr. Stull wrote. 'The secondary aspect was to empower people of all ages and races by bringing attention to the fact that talented artists of color not only work on characters like Batman, Spider-Man, JLA, and the X-Men, but we also create, write, illustrate, produce, and publish our own properties as well.' 'Sequential Art' was showcased at the 'In many ways, I'm amazed that I'm a Black comic book artist, but if you move in my circles, you start to realize that we have always been here, pursuing work in comics,' Born on Feb. 2, 1967, Robert B. Stull grew up in Brookline and Boston. His mother, Patricia Ryder Stull, held administrative and secretarial positions and was devoted to dance, from modern to tap, throughout her life, according to Mr. Stull's older sister, Cydney Garrido of Melbourne, Fla. Their father, Donald L. Stull, was a pioneering Black architect who founded groundbreaking firms and was a designer of Boston landmarks. Cydney said her brother 'was always introspective and thoughtful.' And because his talent flowered early, she said, it 'was kind of a given' that he would pursue art. In the 2018 Globe interview, Mr. Stull spoke about using the family home as his canvas while growing up in Brookline. 'I have a vivid memory of having a pack of jumbo crayons when I was maybe 3 or 4,' he said. 'I went straight to the bathroom — all those white walls — and completely covered the surface with drawings. My parents were so angry, but I remember my father said, 'Wait a minute, maybe there's something to this.' ' Advertisement Mr. Stull's art teachers at Brookline High School encouraged him to get a solid grounding in graphic design and illustration at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Those studies led to a varied career that included comics, advertising, and teaching at places such as the Sometimes his sister Gia, who now also lives in Melbourne, Fla., would watch over his shoulder as he created images. 'He didn't draw in the traditional way,' said Gia, who also studied art. 'He could start with somebody's foot at the bottom of the page and draw up into that page in near perfect realism perspective. It's like he did the sketching in his head.' She added that her brother 'was such a brilliant example of figuring out how to do what you love, and not giving up — making it work for you, and not settling anyone else's definition of what your life should be about. Everything he did was to serve his passion.' While studying at the museum school, Mr. Stull helped launch AWOL, Artists Without Limits. After graduating, he lived in New York City for a time and started Armada Design Group 'to provide authentic comic book inspired artwork in other areas of media and entertainment — specifically music and hip-hop,' he said in the 2021 interview. Advertisement Mr. Stull also founded the Ink on Paper production studio, was a partner in True Elements Publishing, and formerly served among the He told the Globe he always knew it was inevitable that art would be his passion. 'With all the artists in my life, it's like I was in the Mafia — I was born into this thing,' he said. 'I had no choice.' Mr. Stull's sisters, Cydney and Gia, are his only immediate survivors. They said a celebration of his life will be announced. 'It's never been easy to make it as an artist, but the opportunities to be expressive and visible are better now than ever before. But you can't just do one thing — you need to do a bunch of different projects,' Mr. Stull said in the 2018 Globe interview. 'I'm both a fan and a creator,' he said, 'and I always feel fortunate to be doing what I'm doing.' Bryan Marquard can be reached at
Reuters
11-04-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Beijing to host Obstacle World Championships from 2025 to 2028
April 11 (Reuters) - Beijing will host the first four editions of the Obstacle World Championships from 2025 to 2028, World Pentathlon (UIPM) said on Friday. The maiden World Championships will launch in October this year, featuring Obstacle athletes from the Pentathlon and Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) communities competing on 100 metres, 400m and 3km courses. The Reuters Tariff Watch newsletter is your daily guide to the latest global trade and tariff news. Sign up here. The introduction of the competition follows the full integration of the Obstacle discipline into Modern Pentathlon. This development has been backed by the establishment of the UIPM Obstacle Commission and an Obstacle Task-force, which received approval from the UIPM Executive Board on Thursday. "The creation of the UIPM Obstacle World Championships is an important step in the ongoing integration of this popular urban sport into our movement," UIPM President Rob Stull said. "Having successfully introduced Obstacle as a new Pentathlon discipline, it is key that we also provide exciting opportunities for existing OCR athletes to test their skills in a high-quality competitive environment. "It's going to be amazing to see how pentathletes measure up against their OCR specialist counterparts in October." The championships will be hosted at an upgraded sports complex which was designed for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
