Women's heptathlon is the combined event for women contested in the
athletics programme of the Olympics and at the
World Athletics Championships. The
World Athletics Combined Events Tour 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: •
100 metres hurdles •
High jump •
Shot put •
200 metres •
Long jump •
Javelin throw •
800 metres 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 in a slightly different order, and
World Athletics has begun keeping records for it, but the heptathlon remains the championship-level combined event for women.
Nafissatou Thiam, representing Belgium, is the
2024 Olympic Gold Medallist, after successfully defending her previous
2016 and
2020 titles. She is also the reigning
European Champion.
Anna Hall, representing USA, is the current
World Champion.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson, representing Great Britain, is the current
Commonwealth Champion.
Odile Ahouanwanou.
Yekaterina Voronina,
Kiara Reddingius,
Luisarys Toledo and
Ariana Ince hold the African, Asian, Oceanian, South American and NACAC (North American, Central American and Caribbean) titles respectively.
Adriana Rodríguez,
Marthe Koala,
Swapna Barman and
Elenani Tinai hold the Panamerican Games, African Games, Asian Games and Pacific Games titles respectively. There is also a
Tetradecathlon, which is a double heptathlon, consisting of 14 events, seven events per day.
Points system The heptathlon scoring system was devised by Dr Karl Ulbrich, a Viennese mathematician. The formulae are constructed so that, for each event, a designated benchmark performance (for example, approximately 1.82 m for the high jump) scores 1000 points. Each event also has a minimum recordable performance level (e.g. 0.75 m for the high jump), corresponding to zero points. The formulae are devised so that successive constant increments in performance correspond to gradually increasing increments in points awarded. The events are split into three groups, and the scores are calculated according to the three formulae: :Running events (200 m, 800 m and 100 m hurdles): ::P = INT (a \cdot (b - T)^c) :Jumping events (high jump and long jump): ::P = INT (a \cdot (M - b)^c) :Throwing events (shot put and javelin): ::P = INT (a \cdot (D - b)^c)
P is points,
T is time in seconds,
M is height or distance in centimeters and
D is distance in meters.
INT is the integer function, also known as the
floor function, signifying that the result is rounded down to the nearest lower (or equal) whole number.
a,
b and
c have different values for each of the events, as follows:
Benchmarks The following table shows the benchmark levels needed to earn 1000, 900, 800 and 700 points in each event.
Women's world records compared with heptathlon bests == Indoor heptathlon ==