Heptathlon

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A heptathlon is a track and field athletics combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek hepta (seven) and athlon (contest). A competitor in a heptathlon is referred to as a heptathlete.

1 Structure
2 World record
3 Top 10 performers
- 3.1 Other famous heptathletes
4 See also
5 External links

There are two versions of the heptathlon. The first is an outdoor competition for women, and is the combined event for women contested in the Athletics program of the Olympics and in the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. The IAAF World Combined Events Challenge determines a yearly women's heptathlon champion. The women's outdoor heptathlon consists of the following events, with the first four contested on the first day, and the remaining three on day two:

The other version is an indoor competition, normally contested only by men. It is the men's combined event in the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics. The men's indoor heptathlon consists of the following events, with the first four contested on the first day, and remaining three on day two:

The scoring is similar for both versions. In each event, the athlete scores points for his/her performance in each event according to scoring tables issued by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). The athlete accumulating the highest number of points wins the competition.

The heptathlon has been contested by female athletes since the early 1980s, when it replaced the pentathlon as the primary women's combined event contest (the javelin throw and 800 m were added). It was first contested at the Olympic level in the 1984 Summer Olympics. In recent years some women's decathlon competitions have been conducted, consisting of the same events as the men's competition, and the IAAF has begun keeping records for it. But the heptathlon remains the championship-level combined event for women.

The current heptathlon world record is 7291 points. It was set by Jackie Joyner-Kersee at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea, on September 24, 1988.

Her scores in each event were:

Event	Performance	Wind (m/s)	Points
100 m hurdles	12.69 secs	+0.5	1172
High jump	1.86 m		1054
Shot put	15.80 m		915
200 m	22.56 secs	+1.6	1123
Long jump	7.27 m	+0.7	1264
Javelin	45.66		776
800 m	2 mins 08.51 secs		987

Joyner-Kersee has gone over 7,000 points six times and holds the top six places on the all-time performances list. She is also the only person ever to have done so when over the age of 30.[1] Carolina Klüft and Larisa Turchinskaya are the only other women to have topped 7000 points, with Kluft having done so twice.

Accurate as of August 27, 2007.

Mark	Athlete	Nationality	Venue	Date
7291	Jackie Joyner-Kersee	United States	Seoul	September 24, 1988
7032	Carolina Klüft	Sweden	Osaka	August 26, 2007
7007	Larisa Turchinskaya	Soviet Union	Bryansk	June 11, 1989
6985	Sabine Braun	Germany	Götzis	May 31, 1992
6946	Sabine John	East Germany	Potsdam	May 6, 1984
6942	Ghada Shouaa	Syria	Götzis	May 26, 1996
6935	Ramona Neubert	East Germany	Moscow	June 19, 1983
6889	Eunice Barber	France	Arles	June 5, 2005
6859	Natalya Shubenkova	Soviet Union	Kiev	June 21, 1984
6858	Anke Vater-Behmer	East Germany	Seoul	September 24, 1988

Jessica Ennis, UK
Denise Lewis, UK
Kelly Sotherton, UK
Jessica Zelinka, Canada
Lyudmila Blonska, Ukraine
Heike Drechsler, Germany
Margaret Simpson, Ghana
Karin Ruckstuhl, The Netherlands
Lilly Schwarzkopf, Germany
Austra Skujyte, Lithuania (current women's world record-holder for the decathlon)
Tia Hellebaut, Belgium

List of Olympic medalists in athletics (women)

v • d • e Olympic champions in women's pentathlon and heptathlon
As pentathlon	1964: Irina Press • 1968: Ingrid Becker • 1972: Mary Peters • 1976: Siegrun Siegl • 1980: Nadezhda Tkachenko
As heptathlon	1984: Glynis Nunn • 1988: Jackie Joyner-Kersee • 1992: Jackie Joyner-Kersee • 1996: Ghada Shouaa • 2000: Denise Lewis • 2004: Carolina Klüft