What is the Heptathlon? Inside One of Track and Field’s Most Grueling Competitions

With San Diego State sending heptathlete Jenna Fee Feyerabend to the NCAA Championships with a shot at the podium, attention is turning to the event, one of track and field’s most demanding. To fully prepare you for the competition, we’re sharing everything you’ve always wanted to know about the event but were afraid to ask.

The heptathlon is a two-day combined event in women’s track and field that tests athletes across seven different disciplines, blending speed, strength, endurance, agility and technique. Instead of winning based on placement in a single event (that is, finishing first, second, third and so on), athletes accumulate points through complicated formulas across all seven competitions, with the athlete earning the highest overall point total crowned the winner.

Let’s break it down.

The word “heptathlon” comes from the Greek words hepta (seven) and athlon (contest). The competition is divided across two days. 

Day one primarily focuses on speed, technique and explosive power with the 100 m. hurdles, high jump, shot put and 200 m dash.

Day two focuses on jumping, throwing and aerobic endurance and includes long jump, javelin throw and 800 meter run.

The order of events is designed to challenge athletes in different ways. Explosive sprinting and jumping events are mixed with technical throwing competitions and endurance running. 

Many athletes and coaches consider the 800m, the final event, the ultimate test because competitors finish after already having completed six physically exhausting disciplines. By the time athletes are running the 800m, they are often energy depleted and their muscles are sore from two days of events. Because it is also the final event, the 800m often determines the overall winner, meaning that heptathletes must pace themselves strategically against close competitors to secure as many points as possible. 

Unlike traditional track meets, the heptathlon is not based on medals or relative placement in individual events. Each event has its own scoring formula created by World Athletics, allowing times, heights and distances from completely different disciplines to be converted into a single point total. 

Every time or distance corresponds to a specific point value. The formulas were created so that elite athletes (read Olympic medalists) could earn about 1,000 points in each event.

The basic formulas are: 

Running events: (100m hurdles, 200m, 800m) 

P=a(b-T)^c

Jumping events: (high jump, long jump)

P=a(D-b)^c

Throwing events: (shot put, javelin) 

P=a(M-b)^c

Although the formulas share similarities, the constants a, b, and c are set to be calibrated to each specific event. This approach ensures that a strong performance in any of the seven events can earn a roughly comparable number of points, even though the raw numbers look very different across events (an athlete might run the 200m in about 25 seconds, the 800m in about 139 seconds, or throw the javelin 44 meters but the shot put 14 meters).

For running events, the formula is P = a(b – T)^c, where T is the athlete's time in seconds and a, b, and c are the event-specific constants.

To see how this works in practice, consider Feyerabend's 200m at the 2026 Mountain West Championship, where she ran 25.53 seconds. The constants for the 200m are a = 4.99087, b = 42.5, and c = 1.81. Substituting those values into the formula gives P = 4.99087 × (42.5 – 25.53) to the 1.81st power, which works out to 839.2674741 points. Because the rules of combined events always round down to the nearest whole number, Feyerabend earnd 839 points for the 200m.

By contrast, the 800m uses entirely different constants (a = 0.11193, b = 254, c = 1.88) to account for the much longer time scale of that event. The constants do the work of equalizing point potential across all seven events, so no single event is worth disproportionately more or less than the others.

At the end of competition, the athlete with the highest combined point total wins.

The world record is 7,291 points, set by American athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee in 1988. 

Because there is technically no upper scoring limit, there is no true “maximum” number of points possible in an event. However, elite performances usually fall between 850 and 1,200 points per event. 

Zero points can happen if an athlete fails to reach the minimum standard built into the formula. 

So, what does the scoring generally look like in each discipline? 

Sprint and jumping events usually produce the highest scores because small improvements create large point increases. 

For example: 

Throwing events tend to generate slightly lower totals overall, which is why many heptathletes focus heavily on maximizing points in the hurdles, jumps and 200m. 

At major championships, the difference between first and second place can be fewer than 20 points after seven events, or roughly equal to

This means athletes are constantly calculating where they stand throughout the two-day competition. 

The heptathlon is often viewed as one of the toughest competitions in collegiate athletics because athletes must train for entirely different skill sets, simultaneously. 

A heptathlete practices

Success requires versatility rather than specialization which is why heptathletes and other combined-event athletes are considered some of the most athletic across any sport.

At the collegiate level, the heptathlon is one of the most exciting and anticipated events at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Qualifying alone is considered a major accomplishment because athletes must consistently post elite scores throughout the season to advance. At SDSU, Feyerabend has done more than qualify. Her 5905 points are seventh best. The top-ranked heptathlete is Sofia Cosculluela from the University of Washington with 6093 points.

Cheer on SDSU’s Jenna Fee Feyerabend on June 12 and June 13 on ESPN+ and ESPN2. Times listed below.

Top photo credit: San Diego State Athletics