London Olympics 2012 - Women's heptathlon - 5263

The Women's heptathlon competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in

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. The event was held at the

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on 3–4 August. The gold medal was won by

Jessica Ennis Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill (born 28 January 1986) is a British retired track and field athlete from England, specialising in multi-eventing disciplines and 100 metres hurdles. As a competitor in heptathlon, she is the 2012 Olympic champion, ...

. She bettered Eunice Barber's World Heptathlon Best in the

100 metres hurdles The 100 metres hurdles, or 100-meter hurdles, is a track and field event run mainly by women (the male counterpart is the 110 metres hurdles). For the race, ten hurdles of a height of are placed along a straight course of . The first hurdle is ...

by .08 of a second. Many others in the field also achieved their personal bests in the same event. 2004 silver medalist Austra Skujytė outperformed Ennis by 6 cm in the high jump, clearing 1.92m, and in the shot put, where both athletes scored personal bests. In the

200 metres The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slightl ...

, Ennis regained the lead, tying with Dafne Schippers at 22.83 seconds, a personal best for both. Ennis ended this first day with a lead of 175 points. On the second day, Ennis initially struggled with the

long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a ...

, but figured out her marks eventually posting a respectable 6.48m. Reigning World Champion Tatyana Chernova had the best mark in the event with 6.54m.

Sofia Ifadidou Sofia Yfantidou (Greek: Σοφία Υφαντίδου; also transcribed in English Ifadidou; born 10 January 1985) is a Greek track and field athlete. She competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the women's heptathlon A heptathlon is a track a ...

came first in the javelin, setting a new Olympic best of 56.96m while Ennis was over 7 metres behind. Ennis went into the

800 metres The 800 metres, or meters ( US spelling), is a common track running event. It is the shortest commonly run middle-distance running event. The 800 metres is run over two laps of an outdoor (400-metre) track and has been an Olympic event since t ...

with almost a 200-point lead over the slower Skujytė. Confident of a win, she led the race, doing the first 400 in 61.89sec. She paid for that fast pace, being overtaken by Lilli Schwarzkopf and Chernova who were battling over the silver medal. But on the home stretch, Ennis again showed her superiority, passing them both to win in 2:08.65. Chernova won the battle but could not make up the 35 point differential, so Schwarzkopf took silver and Chernova the bronze. Initially after the 800 metres, Schwarzkopf was disqualified for breaking lane, but this later turned out to be a mistake,

Kristina Savitskaya Kristina Savitskaya (russian: Кристина Савицкая born 10 June 1991) is a Russian track and field athlete. She competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the women's heptathlon event. In the 800 m event of the heptathlon, her foot cross ...

in the neighbouring lane having done so, and Schwarzkopf was re-instated. Ennis's final score was 6955 points, a British and Commonwealth record. In 2013, Chernova was suspended over doping violations back to 2009. Subsequently, the IAAF filed a case with the Court of Arbitration questioning the selective suspension periods of her and five other Russian athletes that made them eligible between 2011 and 2013.

Competition format

The heptathlon consists of seven

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 eve ...

events, with a points system that awards higher scores for better results in each of the seven events. The seven event scores are summed to give a total for the heptathlon.

Records

, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.

Schedule

All times are British Summer Time (

UTC+1 UTC+01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in: *Central European Time *West Africa Time *Western European Summer Time **B ...

)

Detailed results

100 metres hurdles

Wind: +0.7, −0.2, +2.0, +0.9, +1.3 m/s.

High jump

Shot put

200 metres

Wind: +0.8, +0.9, +0.3, +0.6, -0.3 m/s.

Long jump

Javelin throw

800 metres

Overall results

Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics 5001 W heptathlon 100mH heat4

The final results of the event are in the following table. ;Key:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics - Women's heptathlon Heptathlon

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...

2012 in women's athletics Women's events at the 2012 Summer Olympics