A heptathlon is a track and field athletics combined events contest made up of seven different competitions. There are two versions of the heptathlon.
The first version 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 seven games split into two consecutive days. Four are contested on day one, while the remaining three are contested on day two of the competition.
The events include the 100 m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 m run, long jump, javelin throw, and the 800 m run. The 100 m hurdles are an Olympic track and field athletics discipline run by women.
For the race ten hurdles of a height of 83.8 cm are placed evenly spaced along a straight course of 100 meters. They are positioned so that they will fall over if bumped into by the runner.
Fallen hurdles don't count against runners so long as they don't run into them on purpose. Like the 100 m sprint, the 100 m hurdles start out of the blocks.
For the 100 m hurdles the first hurdle is placed after a run-up of 13 meters from the starting line. The next 9 hurdles are set at a distance of 8.5 meters from each other, and the home stretch from the last hurdle to the finish line is 10.5 meters long.
The high jump is a track and field athletics competition in which competitors must jump over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without the aid of certain devices. It has been contested since the Olympic Games of ancient Greece.
The shot put is a track and field competition involving throwing a heavy ball - in an up and down motion - as far as possible. It is common to use the term "shot put" to refer to both the shot itself and to the up and down motion.
A 200 m race is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 m track, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques are needed to successfully run the race.
The long jump is a track and field competition in which athletes combine speed, strength, and agility in an attempt to leap as far from the take-off point as possible. Competitors run down a rubber runway and jump as far as they can from behind a foul line into a pit filled with finely ground gravel or sand.
The distance traveled by a jumper is often referred to as the "mark" because it is the distance to the nearest mark made in the sand from the foul line. If the competitor starts the leap with any part of the foot past the foul line, the jump is declared illegal and no distance is recorded.
At the elite level, a layer of plasticine is placed immediately after the board to detect this occurrence. Otherwise, an official will watch the jump and make the determination.
The competitor can initiate the jump from any point behind the foul line; however, the distance measured will always be from the foul line. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the competitor to get as close to the foul line as possible.
The javelin throw is a track and field athletics throwing event where the object to be thrown is a spear approximately 2.5 meters in length. The javelin thrower gains momentum by running up to a predetermined area.
The 800 m race is a common track running competition, and is the last competition in a heptathlon. It is the shortest common middle distance track event.
The 800 meter is run over two laps of a standard, Olympic length track and has always been an Olympic competition. It was included in the first woman's track program in 1928, but suspended until 1960.
The event requires both sprinting speed and physical endurance to last two laps. It combines challenging aspects of both sprinting and middle distance into a single race.
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