After taking the silver medal at the 2013 US ModernPentathlon National championships, Graham Maas returned home and immediatelymade a vow to return in 2014 and bring back gold. In this age of limitedattention spans, one year is a long time for a boy of fourteen to stick to aplan. 
For those unfamiliar with Modern Pentathlon, the sportincludes fencing, swimming, running and shooting. Athletes younger thannineteen do not compete in equestrian events, the fifth pentathlon element, forliability reasons. If you think getting your child to soccer practice each weekis tough, try scheduling practice for four events on a daily basis.
The first step in Graham’s plan was to become an even fasterrunner. Fortunately, he runs for the Wayzata cross country team. In his finalmiddle school season, Graham went from being a middle of the pack runner to oneof the top five runners on the team. Graham singled out the coaching of ChadBartels and Kraig Lungstrom who worked with him to become better at pacing andusing proper form. All of which paid off in spades.

Graham finishing up a cross country race for Wayzata in 2013Graham swims year-round with the Life Time Bears swim team.It’s not every swimmer that gets to swim with the US Paralympic national coach,but again fortune shined on Graham when the swim team named Tom Franke as itshead coach. Franke, was recently  tabbed the Paralympic National Coach of theYear. Franke helped Team USA to an astonishing 41 medals at the 2012 LondonParalympics as co-head coach of the U.S. squad. 

Graham & swim coach, Tom Franke
 Franke also individually coachedTeam USA's three captains: Anna Eames (silver), Cortney Jordan (three silvers,one bronze) and Justin Zook (gold and a world record). Zook has been a keymotivator for Graham, providing all the depth and knowledge required to becomean Olympian. 
Before swimming at the Olympic Training Center Aquatic Center, Graham always pays a visit to the photo of Justin Zook, one of his swim coaches back in Minnesota

In the three months following crosscountry season, Franke had lowered Graham’s 200 freestyle time by twelveseconds. Graham also credits Franke with something else: firing the inner Olympicspirit in him and more importantly, being a gracious and humble competitor.
In late winter, Graham was strugglingwith his fencing. He was losing more than ever before. He was havingperformance meltdowns on the fencing strip. It simply was not working for him.The stars aligned again when Minnesota Sword Club director Rich Jacobsonintroduced Graham to Jim Johnson, the competitive instructor at the club.Johnson and Graham immediately clicked. As Graham stated, “Prior to CoachJohnson, I was just told to ‘do this’ or ‘do that’ but no one ever connectedthe dots for me so I never knew why Iwas doing something with my footwork or with the blade. Coach Johnson explainedto me the why, and it all became soclear. I guess I’m sort of cerebral and I just needed to see the end game.”Graham became a much more confident fencer and it started to show intournaments. Progress was being made.

Graham & Minnesota Sword Club competitive epee instructor, Jim JohnsonIt was also time for Graham to start training for track. The weather outside was cold, but Graham was invited to train inside the dome at Central Middle School each Friday afternoon where 400 interval training was going on. Graham would finish up his running session and head straight over to the pool to get in a two hour workout. The days were getting long for him now, and would not ease up until late June. He stayed dedicated.


2014 Track Training - Central MS Dome from Brian Maas on Vimeo.

On March 29 at the start of springbreak, Graham traveled to San Antonio, Texas, to compete in the Paul PesthyMemorial Pentathlon, which served as the Texas Regional Championships. Maasfenced at the newly built and fully dedicated fencing building on the campus ofthe Universityof the Incarnate Word. 

2014 Paul Pesthy Memorial Pentathlon from Brian Maas on Vimeo.

The day before, Graham received a private fencing lessonfrom John Moreauwho was a member of 1984 and 1988 US OlympicFencing Team. During competition Graham fenced well enough to take him to thetitle of overall male winner for the regional event, his first overallpentathlon win.
Graham and John Moreau fence together in San Antonio

The very next week Graham was competing in a much colder spot, MendotaHeights. Snow was still on the ground as Graham competed in the Great PrairiePentathlon, the regional event for the Midwest. Instead of aging up andcompeting with the older boys, he stayed within his natural age group to competeand start to get ready for Nationals. His combined run-shoot time had thetimers simply shaking their heads. How could someone run that fast and yetshoot so accurately? Confidence was growing.
Graham completes the Minnesota regional Pentathlon
2014 Great Prairie Pentathlon from Brian Maas on Vimeo.

Track season arrived and again Graham foundhimself working with Kraig Lungstrom. There was a barrier to breakthrough andGraham was hell-bent on achieving it: A sub-five minute 1600. Lungstrom againcoached Graham to proper pacing and calculated workouts. Graham finished theseason with that sub-five minute 1600. On three separate occasions. But even more impressive was running the3200 in 10:40, the second fastest by an 8th grader in Wayzata highschool history. That was important because in the run-shoot combined ofpentathlon, Graham would be called upon to run 4x800 meter circuits withprecision shooting in between each 800. Graham now had the confidence to runfaster and shoot well.

April 28th Intervals with Kraig from Brian Maas on Vimeo.

Graham has always been a strong shooterand many consider that aspect to be his best pentathlon element. But thatdoesn’t mean advice is not needed. On April 26, Graham competed in the NewMexico Modern Pentathlon regional held in Roswell, New Mexico. The day beforethe competition, he worked on shooting with New Mexico Military Institute head coachJan Olesiński. Olesiński’s credentialsinclude competing in the 1980 Olympic Games.

Graham and Jan OlesińskiThe next day at the competitionGraham, the youngest competitor by far, finished second in the field. He simplyblew everyone away during the shooting phase. 


2014 New Mexico Modern Pentathlon from Brian Maas on Vimeo.

It was now time for final tune-up stages for Nationals. School was finallyout. Graham was working out three, sometimes four, times per day. He refusedall sweets. He only drank milk. He didn’t even want soda in the house. Hispersonal pentathlon coach, Todd McIntyre, started to prepare Graham mentallyfor Nationals. Now that Graham had participated in three regionals in 2014, heknew nearly all his competitors. McIntyre would play the part of one of thecompetitors at fencing practice and Graham would have to quickly adjust hisfocus and movements for that person. It was a crucial last step. Fencing is thefirst event up during a day-long pentathlon event. And Graham would need a faststart.
On July 5th at 8 AM at the fencing building on the campus ofthe Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, the boy’s National eventbegan. Each competitor faced 42 grueling one touch fencing bouts. Grahamimmediately started off with a win. After ten bouts he was 8-2. After twentybouts he was 14-6. He finished with five straight victories for total of 27 winsand just 15 defeats for a win percentage of 64%, a personal record. And he notonly led the Youth C (13-14 year old) category, he was tied for fourth overallout of twenty-two athletes. 
At 11 AM, Graham swam a personal best in the swim which was all themore impressive because it was at altitude as Colorado Springs sits at 6500feet elevation. He still led Youth C and was still sitting in fourth place,this time all by himself. 
At 1 PM, the combined event started. Graham ran and shot a personalbest yet again and earned his first national championship. Grahamperformed so well that he was the top scorer from all groups and winner ofYouth C with 1,091 points. Reigning National Youth A and Junior championBrendan Anderson won Youth A with 1,068 points, Seamus Millett won Youth B with1,068 points and Alexander Yue won Youth E with 897 points. The full results ofthe Youth Boys US National Championship can be viewed by clicking here.


2014 US Modern Pentathlon Nationals - Graham Highlights from Brian Maas on Vimeo.

While Graham said his coaches were the key to the victory,his friends and fellow competitors also had a key role. Floridian MichaelHoffmann, arguably the best youth male pentathlete fencer in the country, didnot hesitate to provide Graham with advice. Neither did Hoffmann’s coach,Egyptian pentathlete Omar El Geziry, one the top male pentathletes in theworld. Up-and-coming pentathletes such as Colorado’s Seamus Millett andCalifornia’s Noah Rescate provided not only fantastic and stressfulcompetition, but valued and long-lasting friendship. The USA Modern Pentathlon youth team will be a force to be reckoned on the international stage with in the coming years. I'm not sure the youth deep has ever been so deep in talent.
Graham’s next goals? Another successful cross countryseason, this time under the tutelage of Bill Miles, the long-tenured coach ofthe 2013 Minnesota State champion Wayzata harriers. Then try out for, and make,the 2013 Minnesota State champion Wayzata swim team. 
Longer term, Graham has his eye on Buenos Aires in 2015 andDublin in 2016 where the Youth World Modern Pentathlon championships will beheld. It will take a lot of work to get there. All of which Graham has shown heis willing to do.