The modern pentathlon was originally designed to include the ideal skills of a soldier of the time.

By the Second World War, some of those skills (fencing and horse riding) were irrelevant to the modern soldier.

It was during discussions held at Frankfurt am Main which led to the setting up of the Allied Forces Sports Council, that his attention was drawn to an original military physical training technique used, at that time, by the Netherlands airborne units.

Captain Debrus took the Dutch method as a guide, eliminated the parachute jump and modified the other tests in order to form a system, which he thought, would constitute an ideal way of ground training.

A first trial competition organised by himself was held at the Military Physical Training Centre, at Freiburg, in the French occupation zone in Germany, in August 1947.