Less than a year after taking up the obscure Olympic sport of the modern pentathlon 19-year-old Hayden Marrs of Riverside has already become one of the top American athletes in the niche sport. Last month Marrs finished sixth in the open division, and third in the junior division, at the U.S.A. Pentathlon National Championships that were held Dec. 13-14 at Charlotte, North Carolina. Just 32 athletes competed in the men’s division and eight of whom were also in the men’s junior, under age 22, division.
“Hayden Marrs is one of our top recruits,” said Kevin Montford, the executive director of USA Pentathlon in a telephone interview. “He has shown a lot progress and potential in a very short period of time. The one thing to note is that the depth of our competitions is not nearly as strong as you might see in Europe.”
Marrs graduated in 2024 from Riverside Brookfield High School, where he competed in track, cross country, swimming, and water polo. A year ago he was feeling lost in the midst of a difficult first year at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. His chance to walk on the St. Thomas track and field team was taken away before he had even set foot on campus. For the first time in his life the intensely competitive Marrs was without a sport.
“I was quite lost,” Marrs said in a telephone interview with the Landmark.
Marrs, the son of RB District 208 school board president Deanna Zalas and former Riverside village attorney Michael Marrs, had grown up watching the Olympic Games on television with his family.
“We watch the Olympics every time that they come around,” Marrs said. “I was raised on the Olympics. One of my earliest memories is watching (swimmer Michael) Phelps in 2012.”
He remembers watching the modern pentathlon, a five-discipline event that now consists of swimming, fencing, navigating a ninja obstacle course, running and shooting a laser pistol. The event was developed by the Baron Pierre de Coubertin, considered the father of the modern Olympic movement. It became an Olympic sport in 1912. It was originally designed to test the skills of a cavalry soldier but after the 2024 Paris Olympics the equestrian show riding element of the sport was eliminated in favor of a ninja obstacle course.
Marrs was an accomplished runner and swimmer in high school having qualified for the State Meet in both sports at RB. He was part of the 2022 state champion RB cross country team. Marrs thought the pentathlon might be a good fit for him. He was looking for a new challenge.
On a Thanksgiving break trip home during his freshman year at college Marrs stopped by RB and visited with RB swim coach Mike Laurich and mentioned his interest in the pentathlon.
“Mike is an important person in my life and he knew that I was struggling, I was having a really hard time at that time and needed something to latch on to,” Marrs said.
Laurich just happened to know Dr. Genadijus Sokolovas, known as Dr. G., who is a former head of sports science for USA Swimming and now also works with and recruits athletes for USA Pentathlon. Sokolovas looked at Marrs high school running and swimming times, 51 seconds in 400-meter dash and 21.80 in 50 yard and decided that Marrs had the potential to be top flight pentathlete.
“Dr. G reached out to me and he offered me a trip to Colorado Springs, the Olympic Training Center, to learn to fence and shoot,” Marrs said.
Early results showed promise and by February 2025 Marrs began training for the pentathlon. He hooked up with a fencing club in the Twin Cities. And he practiced fencing on his own using a pillow stuffed with tissue and held together by duct tape as a target.
After a regional competition in Colorado Marrs traveled, along with a number of top American pentathletes to compete in the Candidian National Championships. Marrs was in third place heading into the last event, a 2,000-meter run that is broken up with stations of target shooting but started too fast and finished in 10th place.
“I competed boldly,” Marrs recalled. “I expected to win Canadian Nationals but I fell short. I went into the finals in third place and I ran very boldly.”
Marrs, who was also a top student at RB, was hooked and much to his parents’ dismay decided not to return to college in the fall and instead to train full time for the pentathlon.
“Unfortunately for my parents it was not difficult at all,” Marrs said of his decision not to return for his sophomore year of college. “I love risk taking and I also felt like this was right. This is where my fate lies, in this sport.”
At the Candidian Nationals Marrs caught the attention of Montford and USA Pentathlon coach Vaho Igorashivili and in September they invited Marrs to Charlotte, where the top U.S. modern pentathletes train, for a two-week tryout.
“I was noticed by Kevin and coach of the team that I’m on now, Vaho, and they liked what they saw,” Marrs said. “They liked the energy that I brought.”
The tryout went well and Marrs was offered a spot in the training program. So Marrs has been living in Charlotte since late September and training full time with the USA Pentathlon at U.S. Performance Center on the campus of UNC-Charlotte. A number of other Olympic sports teams, such as field hockey, rugby and bobsledding also train there. USA Pentathlon pays for his room and board but doesn’t currently pay him a stipend.
Marrs lives with a fellow pentathlete in an apartment complex and follows an intense six days a week training program. The workouts begin at 8 a.m. with running, shooting and then practicing for the ninja obstacle course and/or weightlifting. Then there is a few hour break for lunch and physiotherapy.
“I get treatment done every day just to keep my body together and in one piece,” Marrs said.
Afternoons typically consist of a swimming workout and fencing practice.
“Evening is getting some food and get some sleep,” Marrs said.
It’s a grueling routine but he loves it.
“This is a childhood dream come true on so many levels, being at the U.S. Performance Center, being a professional athlete and doing it so quickly,” Marrs said. “I mean from amateur to professional in 11 months is unheard of.”
Marrs said that variety of the pentathlon suits his personality.
“The best thing this sport has done for me is that it’s allowed me to channel my fearless, manic energy into something healthy and productive,” Marrs said. “As a kid I was good at covering up some of these antics but I definitely engaged in dangerous behavior and reckless pursuits of things. And I think that’s something that not many people would assume because I was a good student, I was a good athlete but I used those things to cover up some very stupid behavior.”
And the pentathlon has taught him life lessons.
“One of the nice things that pentathlon has done for me is that it’s taught me how to capture that emotion and not suppress, or not get rid of it, but to acknowledge it’s there, accept it and wield it to my advantage,” Marrs said. “I’ve learned to trust my instincts. In life and sports it’s supposed to be difficult and it’s not something you should shy away from. Pain is necessary.”
Marrs is aiming high.
“I want to qualify for the LA 2028 Olympics and I want to win in a medal in Brisbane 2032,” Marrs said.
Those goals will not be easy to achieve. Only 32 pentathletes, no more than two from any one country, qualify for the Olympics and the top competitors in the world typically come from Eastern Europe or Egypt.
“You usually think of the U.S. as a formidable country but in the world of pentathlon we’re pretty small,” Marrs said.
Marrs is so devoted to the pentathlon that he is applying to enlist in the U.S. Army and become part of its World Class Athlete Program, known as WCAP. In the program Marrs would complete basic training like any other enlisted soldier but then devote the rest of his time in the Army to training for the pentathlon. That way he could get paid as a soldier to train full time and represent the Army in competitions.
“Nothing is official yet, but I meet all the requirements and have the full support that I need,” Marrs said.
Is he worried about being called to fight as a soldier?
“That’s very rare,” Marrs said. “Only in an extreme time of war would that happen but in an extreme time of war there are other bigger, deeper fish to fry.”
He is now completely devoted to a sport that few of his friends and acquaintances have even heard of and not living the life of a college student.
“I am making sacrifices but I’m very happy with the sacrifices I’ve made,” Marrs said. “I’m an extreme person; I know this about myself so I’m OK living in the black and white. I’m OK giving it all to something. I have no regrets.”
And there is nothing he would rather be doing.
“Other than like being in love, I guess, there is no greater feeling than competing and training for modern pentathlon for me,” Marrs said.
