odern pentathlon was first held at the 1912 Olympic Games and an event for women was added in 2000. It consists of fencing, swimming, show jum

In the three major titles currently at the forefront of competitive gaming -- League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Dota 2 -- the words North America can sometimes be seen in a joking context.Words uttered with futility.Large clubs, little talent.During the qualifiers running up to Dota 2s world championship in Seattle, The International, the head coach of two-time Majors champion OG, Sébastien 7ckingMad Debs, posted out on social media:Watching [European qualification] all day and then watching this s***show [NA qualifiers], I cant believe the ratio to qualify is actually highest in this one, its bulls***.To be fair, from an outsiders perspective, he was correct. North America did look like a mashup of recently shuffled teams, amateur clubs and high-level amateur players banding together for maybe their one shot at making Seattle. In Europe, which had produced every finalist team at a Major this year going into The International with OG, Team Secret, and Team Liquid, the competition seemed fierce to make it through the daunting qualifiers onwards to Seattle. Staples to The International such as Team Empire and Virtus.pro failed to qualify, while intriguing upstarts like Ad Finem from Greece were ousted.Feel free to put together another one of your s*** teams and come lose in the NA qualifier next year, responded defending world champion captain Peter ppd Dager of Evil Geniuses, never shy about sharing his opinion on matters.For all the laughter at the expense of North America, ppd and Evil Geniuses were the one bastion of credibility for the North American fans. EG, following the 2014 tournament where it ended up third, ran through the gauntlet of clubs at The International 2015 to hoist the Aegis as a primarily American team in front of the home crowd fans. After watching South Koreans dominate in StarCraft II and League of Legends while the Europeans (and now Brazilians) devoured all the Counter-Strike hardware, the American fans had a team they could fully get behind with the ability to win it all.This year, especially after those comments for the world to see, ppd could have ended up looking like a fool. Evil Geniuses had won the year prior, but nothing is a sure thing in the world of esports. Its especially the case in the topsy-turvy scene of Dota 2. The squad, which had recently reacquired former players Saahil Universe Arora and Ludwig Zai W?hlberg, was forced to work its way through the open qualifiers due to changing the roster after the Manila Major.The team climbed its way up the rungs of the ladder to eventually qualify for the tournament, but there were still some worries if it could perform. Universe was considered the MVP of the team from last years run to the Aegis, yet he left the team in the middle of the year to follow fellow team member Arteezy Babaev to the Shanghai Major-winning Team Secret, which was putting together an all-star roster. Zai, also a former EG member who left the team to join Team Secret, had been out of professional play for almost a year, having decided to put pro-gaming on hold until he graduated from high school.Rumors even swirled after Arteezy and Universes departure that 17-year-old prodigy Syed Sumail Hassan and veteran Clinton Fear Loomis would also leave the world champion organization; however, those reports never came to fruition and the two stayed on the team. There was upheaval and drama abound for Evil Geniuses, just like a majority of the North American teams across the three major competitive gaming titles.Yet despite the lukewarm debut of the new starting five at SL i-League StarSeries Season 2 (the team came in a disappointing fifth out of eight teams), Evil Geniuses thus far at The International has looked the part of a defending champion. It did well in the group stages to get second place for an automatic bid into the upper bracket, and the campaign at the main event up to this point has been awe-inspiring.Newbee was EGs first victim at the KeyArena in Seattle with a convincing sweep, and then the upper bracket semifinal versus EHOME could, and probably will, go down as one of the best series in The Internationals six-year history. In the first game where it appeared as if Evil Geniuses were done and ready to roll over into game two with as Mega Creeps converged on the squad from all corners of the map, the pride of North America didnt break. The Chinese powerhouse continually attempted to knock down the heart of the EG base, but, again and again, the five Evil Geniuses held strong, playing like a team that had been together the entire year.One. Two. Three times. On and on EHOME went to knockout the kings, and it broke open the door. EHOMEs Wang Old Chicken Zhiyong went for a desperate individual backdoor play after all four his teammates were wiped away from the map by EG, but, like all the other attempts, it didnt succeed. As cool, calm, and collected as you like, the winners of last years International fended off everything thrown at them and stampeded down to the Chinese teams base to take home the victory in one of the most memorable games in Dota 2 history. Seventy-five minutes in game one led to a relatively quick win for EG in game two, with EHOME never finding its bearings again.It feels a lot like last year, answered ppd in an interview immediately following the sweep over EHOME. Two of my teammates left last year, and that sucks, but then we come to TI and I see all these European teams losing, and I find myself against China in the winner bracket. So Im hoping well have something similar to last year, but well have to wait in see.Evil Geniuses has made it to the top three of the last three Internationals.At those events, EG has played 10 matches -- one against Complexity, a fellow North American organization, and nine against Chinese teams. Each of those tournaments, EG started in the upper bracket and never ran into a European team. Today, its 10th match against a Chinese team will commence, as the team will play the unpredictable and zany Wings Gaming.You can say ppds salty or arrogant, but his words have been backed up on the largest stage in competitive gaming. All of the teams based in Europe or from the European qualifiers have been eliminated, meaning 7ckingMads comments lack merit. Here PPD and Evil Geniuses sit in the upper bracket finals, facing another Chinese team as the crowd chants USA! USA! USA! endlessly behind them with Europe mysteriously nowhere to be seen.Not too bad for a team playing from a joke of a region, right? Nike Air Max Clearance Canada . LOUIS -- Roman Polak was celebrating even before Alexander Steen scored the winning goal in Saturdays 4-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes. Nike Air Max Canada Sale . In what the team had called a retirement, Ryan said Thursday that he is resigning as chief executive of the Rangers in a move effective at the end of this month. http://www.discountairmaxcanada.com/ .J. -- New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz will miss the rest of the season after having surgery on his left knee. Nike Air Max Outlet Canada . -- Charline Labonte couldnt have asked for a better homecoming. Discount Air Max Shoes Canada . Aaron Harrison scored a 22 points for Kentucky (6-1), which has won four in a row following a Nov. 12 loss to current No. 1 Michigan State. Julius Randle overcame a scoreless first half and added his sixth double-double in as many games with 14 points and 10 rebounds. There are few sports that owe their origins to the ancient equivalent of a Bond movie -- but modern pentathlon is one of them.It was created by French baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement, and combines all of the aspects of traditional combat.The basic premise is of a soldier trapped in a castle on a lake. He must fence his way out before swimming to the shore, riding an unfamiliar horse out of the village and running through a wood shooting at enemies.Modern pentathlon was first held at the 1912 Olympic Games and an event for women was added in 2000. It consists of fencing, swimming, show jumping, shooting and running.---ONE TO WATCH:Cheered on by a home crowd, Brazilian Yane Marques will be bidding to improve on the bronze medal she won four years ago.Modern pentathlon was a little known discipline in Brazil when Marques, who was born in a small town in the Brazilian northeast, took it up in 2003, becoming national champion just a year later.But a series of titles, including gold at the 2007 Pan American Games and becoming the first Olympic medal winner in modern pentathlon in the entire Southern Hemisphere has made the country sit up and take note.Marques also won gold at the 2015 Pan American Games and silver at the 2013 world championships, where she lost out to Olympic gold medalist Laura Asadauskaite.There are advantages: knowing the facilities, having a huge crowd behind me, my family being able to see me race, the 32-year-old Marques said. Aside from all this though, there is a very great pressure.The 32-year-old again faces stiff competition, with the top seven from London all returning.Asadauskaite of Lithuania will be favorite, along with Germanys Lena Schoneborn, the 2008 Olympic champion and 2015 World champion.---RULE CHANGES:The core sport remains largely the same since London 2012, but with the addition of a fencing bonus round, which sees the athletes compete in a one-on-one format on a single piste after the traditional round robin in a bid to up their score.The combined event has also been slightly altered to involve four 800m laps of running, instead of 1000m, each still prefaced by laser shooting at five targets, with the intention of restoring more weight to the shooting element.The introduction of the combined event was one of two dramatic changes between Beijing 2008 and Londonn, with the other being the replacement of air pistols with laser ones, for safety reasons.dddddddddddd---FAMILY AFFAIRS:For the first time in modern pentathlon history, two sisters will compete in the same Games.It will be a third successive Olympics for 24-year-old American Margaux Isaksen, who was fourth in London, just two seconds away from a medal, and a first for younger sister Isabella, 22.To be able to compete together with your sister, there is nothing more special, Margaux said. I think this could be the most special Olympics just in that respect.There could also be sibling rivalry on the mens team. Nathan Schrimsher was the first American athlete in any sport to qualify for the Rio Games and younger brother Lucas is his reserve teammate.Sydney siblings Max and Chloe Esposito will also both be competing in the modern pentathlon and the family link doesnt stop there.Right alongside them will be their father and coach, Daniel Esposito, who represented Australia in the sport in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and also qualified for the 1988 Seoul Olympics but had to pull out due to injury.Chloe, 23, finished a surprise seventh in London and is now targeting a first medal in modern pentathlon for Australia. It is 18-year-old Maxs first Olympic Games.---SKULDUGGERYOne of the biggest scandals in Olympic history took place in modern pentathlon during the 1976 Games in Montreal.Soviet athlete Boris Onischenko was one of the stars of the discipline. He had helped his country win the team event in 1972, where he was also an individual silver-medallist, and he won the world championship three times.At the age of 38, Onischenko was expected to bow out of his last Olympics with a medal.However, during the fencing section it was discovered that he had wired his epee so that he could trigger the electronic scoring system with his hand and register a hit at will.Onishchenko was disqualified and escorted from the athletes village by Soviet officials that very night.Two months later it was reported that Onischenko had been called before Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev for a personal scolding, dismissed from the Red Army, fined 5,000 rubles, stripped of all his sporting honors, and was working as a taxi driver in Kiev. ' ' '