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The story
According to a Yomiuri Shimbun report, at the Asian Games currently underway in Anjo, Aichi Prefecture, the modern pentathlon’s “equestrian” event has been abolished for humanitarian and other reasons, replaced by a new event called “Obstacle” starting September 16. It’s an obstacle-course race rooted in the Japanese TV show “SASUKE,” reportedly featuring obstacles like stepping stones, ladders, and wall climbs. On 5ch, comments ranged from claims that the real-life difficulty is easier than the original SASUKE, to debate over whether it’s accurate for reports to frame it as “SASUKE being adopted,” to concerns about what will happen to the horses that had been used in the now-scrapped equestrian event.
Yomiuri Shimbun, 2026/09/15 12:00
Obstacle Race Replaces Equestrian… Competition Begins in Anjo on the 16th
A new event called “Obstacle” has been added to the modern pentathlon at the Asian Games (sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun), with competition set to begin tomorrow, the 16th, at Anjo City General Sports Park. The traditional “equestrian” event has been scrapped for humanitarian and other reasons, marking the first-ever addition of an obstacle race rooted in the popular Japanese TV show “SASUKE.” Clearing stepping-stone footholds, leaping up to overhead ladders, sprinting up walls… The familiar “ultimate survival” format looks set to draw attention from a wide range of age groups. (By Kenya Sakamoto)
Source: yomiuri.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Then I'm not watching.
I just skip straight to that part.
I can't stand the whole 'squad' gimmick.
Come to think of it, does the Black Tigers' ace-type guy actually challenge this event?
There's a difference between a format where it's fine if just one person manages a full clear, versus treating it as one of five events used to score a large field of competitors — of course the difficulty setting is going to differ.
If they made it as brutally hard as the original show, there'd be no spread in scores, and it wouldn't balance against the other four events.
Unlike the TV version, which changes its rules every episode, if you're turning this into an actual sport they've probably nailed down fine details — stepping stones spaced X centimeters apart, rope Y meters long, and so on.
Otherwise you couldn't fairly compare times.
SASUKE-style stuff would overlap with that, wouldn't it?
They'll probably differentiate it with stuff like spinning obstacles that knock you off.
This is exactly why Japanese people are like that.
The modern pentathlon is that Napoleon thing, right?
Why are you throwing ninjas into Napoleon's event?
That's beyond nonsensical.
A grown adult living life nitpicking pointless stuff like this — pretty lame, honestly.
No, it's just that Japanese people don't get it.
This isn't SASUKE, it's "Obstacle."
It's only being called "SASUKE" because they got licensing permission — that's all it is.
Just Japan's weird, warped sense of pride.
Lol, that's just picking a fight over nothing (an 'ichamon').
Do Asian athletes just have a lot of free time?
Can't even read Re: #1, huh?
There's a power-type obstacle at the very end of the 1st Stage, but I've never once seen anyone fail there.
Or is 'Obstacle' by itself its own standalone event?
The former.
'Obstacle' (SASUKE-style) was adopted in place of equestrian within the modern pentathlon.
Though the difficulty is nothing special at all.
That 'dud horse' issue is actually one of the reasons it got dropped from the five events.
Something like the vaulting box would work fine as a real event.
Even the Olympics has plenty of boring events, so honestly, stuff like 'Monster Box' or 'Shotgun Touch' is more entertaining.
When 'Obstacle' was originally being developed into a competitive sport, Japan's TBS was involved in cooperating on it, so it's not unrelated.
No, it checks out — SASUKE was broadcast in America, that became Ninja Warrior, the entertainment format spread from there, and it eventually got turned into the competitive sport 'Obstacle.'
The way Japanese media is writing about this is off.
Early reports said 'SASUKE was adopted,' so everyone's under the wrong impression, but in reality it was more like a reference point, nothing more.
Then they'd have to abolish horse racing too.
Horse racing makes money, so the horses get fed well.
Equestrian doesn't make money, so it's closer to abuse.
What's being abolished is just the equestrian event within the modern pentathlon.
Show jumping, eventing, and the rest continue as normal.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
The abolition of modern pentathlon “equestrian” isn’t a first tied only to this Asian Games — it traces back to an incident at the Tokyo Olympics equestrian competition, where a scene of an athlete striking a horse to force it to jump drew international criticism, prompting the International Modern Pentathlon Federation to move forward with overhauling the event. This Asian Games is one instance of the resulting new “Obstacle” event being adopted, and as pointed out in the thread, the essential difference from SASUKE — a TV show that pushes difficulty to the absolute extreme as a standalone competition — is that this obstacle course is designed to create score differentials across five events. Meanwhile, the debate over the media’s framing that “SASUKE was adopted” appears to stem from the fact that SASUKE itself was a pioneer of the obstacle-race genre, having influenced similar shows overseas (such as Ninja Warrior), which makes it ambiguous where to draw the line on what counts as “SASUKE-derived.” As for the concerns about what happens to the horses because of the equestrian ban, some comments appeared to misunderstand that it’s only the modern pentathlon’s equestrian event being discontinued — not equestrian sports as a whole.
* This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “SASUKE Event Adopted for the First Time at the Asian Games… ‘Obstacle’ Added to Modern Pentathlon.”
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