Pentathlon judges sharpen their skills at start of busy year in Sofia (BUL)

Bulgaria will be one of the epicentres of UIPM Sports in 2019, with UIPM Pentathlon World Cup Sofia taking place in April and the UIPM U17 & U19 World Championships also heading to Sofia in July.

To ensure that the level of judging will be as high as possible for these and other competitions, UIPM held a Judges Certification Programme (JCP) course in the capital city from February 5-10.

The course was run by Janusz Peciak, 1976 Olympic champion and Chairman of the UIPM Technical Committee and Executive Board Member for Sport, and took place at the Building of the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

There were 27 students on the course and they participated in a practical assessment on February 9 and 10 during the Open Bulgarian National Championships.

On the final day, certificates were presented to the JCP graduates by Janusz Peciak and Andrey Kuzmanov, President of the Bulgarian Modern Pentathlon Federation.

Janusz Peciak said: “It was a great pleasure to be involved in the JCP course in Sofia. The students showed a lot of enthusiasm and commitment to develop their understanding of the technical aspects of our sport, and I am certain that the judging of the pentathlon competitions in Bulgaria in 2019 will be conducted at a very high level.”

In 2018, UIPM certified more than 200 judges in various locations across the world, including Mexico City (MEX) ahead of the UIPM Pentathlon World Championships, Jakarta (INA) ahead of the 2018 Asian Games, Almaty (KAZ) ahead of the UIPM 2018 Pentathlon World Cup Final and Buenos Aires (ARG) ahead of the 2018 Youth Olympic Games.

In 2019, JCP courses will take place in eight countries that will host key UIPM competitions, Olympic qualification and Olympic ranking competitions: Great Britain, Hungary, China, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Japan and USA.

Visit the UIPM educational platform to find a range of resources for athletes, coaches and judges including the JCP courses calendar.