In 1976 an athlete with the name Jenner set the world record when winning the Olympic Decathlon. I decided to see what the results from each event would translate to in the Heptathlon.
Jumping Events- The only two events which are exactly the same in both events are the long jump and high jump.
Hurdles- When it comes to the high hurdles the decathlon event is 110 meters using hurdles which are 106.7 cm in height while the heptathlon is 100 meters with hurdles 83.8 cm in height. The only thing I did to adjust the time was take off the average time needed to travel 10 meters. Had I considered the height difference in the hurdles, I'm pretty certain the time would drop even more.
Hurdles- When it comes to the high hurdles the decathlon event is 110 meters using hurdles which are 106.7 cm in height while the heptathlon is 100 meters with hurdles 83.8 cm in height. The only thing I did to adjust the time was take off the average time needed to travel 10 meters. Had I considered the height difference in the hurdles, I'm pretty certain the time would drop even more.
Throwing Events- For both the shot put and javelin the weights and sizes of the implements are different. When it comes to the shot put the decathlon athletes use a shot put which is 7.26 kilograms while the heptathlon athletes use a shot put which is 4 kilograms. The javelin used in the decathlon is 800 grams and between 8'6" and 8'10" in length. The javelin used for the heptathlon is 200 grams lighter at 600 grams with a length typically a foot shorter (7'3'-7'7"). I did not take the different implements into consideration when adjusting to heptathlon points.
Sprint- To come up with an expected 200 meter time I divided the 400 meter time in half and reduced it by one second. Had I gone the route of simply doubling the 100 meter time I would have been using an expected finish time of 21.88 seconds.
Mid-Distance- To determine an 800 meter time I took the 1,500 meter time and cut it in half to get 2:06.3 Had I simply doubled the 400 meter time we would be looking at 1:35.02. If you look up how to convert a 400 time to an 800 time, track coaches frequently use the technique of doubling the 400 time and adding 10 seconds. If we did that, we would be using a time over 20 seconds faster than what I used.
Overall Adjustments- If you took the time to read through how I got the adjusted times and distances, it's pretty obvious that I was very conservative. Had I not been so conservative with my expected results, the expected heptathlon point total would have been closer to 8,600. It's worth mentioning that the world record in the heptathlon is 7,291 by Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
Sprint- To come up with an expected 200 meter time I divided the 400 meter time in half and reduced it by one second. Had I gone the route of simply doubling the 100 meter time I would have been using an expected finish time of 21.88 seconds.
Mid-Distance- To determine an 800 meter time I took the 1,500 meter time and cut it in half to get 2:06.3 Had I simply doubled the 400 meter time we would be looking at 1:35.02. If you look up how to convert a 400 time to an 800 time, track coaches frequently use the technique of doubling the 400 time and adding 10 seconds. If we did that, we would be using a time over 20 seconds faster than what I used.
Overall Adjustments- If you took the time to read through how I got the adjusted times and distances, it's pretty obvious that I was very conservative. Had I not been so conservative with my expected results, the expected heptathlon point total would have been closer to 8,600. It's worth mentioning that the world record in the heptathlon is 7,291 by Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
RSS Feed
