Oddrun Hokland, Dianne Gerace, Irina Press, Ulla Flegel 1964

In the

sport of athletics Athletics is a group of sporting events that involves competitive running, jumping, throwing sports, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and racewalking ...

pentathlon A pentathlon is a contest featuring five events. The name is derived from Greek: combining the words ''pente'' (five) and -''athlon'' (competition) ( gr, πένταθλον). The first pentathlon was documented in Ancient Greece and was part of t ...

s have taken various forms over the history of the sport, typically incorporating five

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

events. The only version of the event to remain at a high level of contemporary competition is the women's indoor pentathlon, which is present on the programme for the

World Athletics Indoor Championships The World Athletics Indoor Championships are a biennial indoor track and field competition served as the global championship for that version of the sport. Organised by the World Athletics, the competition was inaugurated as the ''World Indoor G ...

Olympic athletics pentathlon

The athletics pentathlon featured on the Olympic Games schedule in two separate periods. During the early history of the event, an Olympic men's pentathlon was held and was present at the 1912, 1920 and 1924 games. The men's event was dropped, with the

decathlon The decathlon is a combined event in Athletics (sport), athletics consisting of ten track and field events. The word "decathlon" was formed, in analogy to the word "pentathlon", from Greek language, Greek δέκα (''déka'', meaning "ten") and ...

becoming the international standard. As women's events increasingly were contested internationally, the women's outdoor pentathlon was added and held for five straight editions from 1964 to 1980. The

women's heptathlon A heptathlon is a track and field combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek επτά (hepta, meaning "seven") and ἄθλος (áthlos, or ἄθλον, áthlon, meaning "competition"). A competitor in a hept ...

superseded that event at international level in the early 1980s.

Women's pentathlon

The

International Women's Sports Federation The Fédération Sportive Féminine Internationale (FSFI) – or, in English, the International Women's Sports Federation – was founded in October 1921 by Alice Milliat because of the unwillingness of existing sports organisations, such a ...

was established in 1921 and the first reported women's pentathlon was in the

1922 Women's Olympiad The 1922 Women's Olympiad ( and ) was the secondMonte Carlo Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...

. The events were 60 m, 300 m, high jump, two-hand javelin, and two-hand shot. In the late 1920s, the events were: shot and long jump on the first day, and 100 m, high jump, and javelin on the second day. The first world record recognised by the

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...

was set at the 1934 Women's World Games by

Gisela Mauermayer Gisela Mauermayer (24 November 1913 in Munich – 9 January 1995 in Munich) was a German athlete who competed mainly in the discus. She won the gold medal at the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, Germany Germany,, offic ...

. Prior to Olympic incorporation, the women's pentathlon featured at the

AAA Championships The AAA Championships was an annual track and field competition organised by the Amateur Athletic Association of England. It was the foremost domestic athletics event in the United Kingdom during its lifetime, despite the existence of the officia ...

USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships The USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships is an annual track and field competition organized by USA Track & Field, which serves as the American national championships for the sport. Since the year 1992, in the years which feature a Summer Oly ...

and the

Soviet Athletics Championships The Soviet Athletics Championships (russian: link=no, Чемпионат СССР по лёгкой атлетике) was an annual outdoor track and field competition organised by the Soviet Athletics Federation, which served as the Soviet natio ...

from the 1950s onwards.

Youth athletics

The outdoor pentathlon is in common usage at lower age categories of the sport, allowing for easier training and event scheduling, and avoiding over-training of young athletes. For example, the lower division of the English Schools Combined Events Championships has pentathlons for both boys and girls. In

high school athletics Amateur sports are sports in which participants engage largely or entirely without remuneration. The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sports, professional sporting participants, who are paid for the time ...

in North America, boys' and girls' pentathlons are held, consisting of the

sprint hurdles Hurdling is the act of jumping over an obstacle at a high speed or in a sprint. In the early 19th century, hurdlers ran at and jumped over each hurdle (sometimes known as 'burgles'), landing on both feet and checking their forward motion. Today, ...

, long jump, shot put, high jump, and an 800 m run ( 1500 m run for men). The pentathlon is used because it is less stressful on the athletes than a full multi and because many high school meets only last one day, it allows the event to be contested in the time limit.

Throws pentathlon

Less common, but standardised internationally is the throws pentathlon. This contains field throwing events only:

hammer throw The hammer throw is one of the four throwing events in regular track and field competitions, along with the discus throw, shot put and javelin. The "hammer" used in this sport is not like any of the tools also called by that name. It consis ...

shot put The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" (throwing) a heavy spherical ball—the ''shot''—as far as possible. The shot put competition for men has been a part of the modern Olympics since their revival in 1896, and women's ...

discus throw The discus throw (), also known as disc throw, is a track and field event in which an athlete throws a heavy disk (mathematics), disc—called a discus—in an attempt to mark a farther distance than their competitors. It is an classical antiqui ...

javelin throw The javelin throw is a track and field event where the javelin, a spear about in length, is thrown. The javelin thrower gains momentum by running within a predetermined area. Javelin throwing is an event of both the men's decathlon and the ...

, and

weight throw Two sports have events that fall under the name of weight throw one being the track and field event and the other being the Scottish highland games events. The track and field event is most popular in the United States as an indoor equivalent t ...

. Although it does not have a position in high-profile global athletics competitions, it is present on the programme for the

World Masters Athletics Championships The World Masters Athletics Championships are the biennial championships for masters athletics events held under the auspices of World Masters Athletics, formerly called the World Association of Veteran Athletes, for athletes 35 years of age or o ...

for both men and women. This event features at national level in many developed English-speaking nations.British Masters Throws Pentathlon 2015
Tom Phillips. Retrieved on 2016-06-18.

References

{{Portal bar, Athletics Combined track and field events Pentathlon

Pentathlon A pentathlon is a contest featuring five events. The name is derived from Greek: combining the words ''pente'' (five) and -''athlon'' (competition) ( gr, πένταθλον). The first pentathlon was documented in Ancient Greece and was part of t ...