Combined Events Training
Rules of the game:
Combined Event competitions are all about points. Highest amount of points after a certain amount of agreed events win. It has nothing to do with "winning" events; it's about performance rather than placings.
For example 100m in 12.02s for a man is 647pts and 1.78m in the high jump for a woman is 953pts. But how are these points calculated? The world athletics score tables can be found here for a detailed explanation of the history of how the scoring system came to be.
A quick overview is that every event follows the same formula:
Points = A*(|Performance - B|)^C
Where the "Performance" is the distance of throws in metres, times of races in seconds and heights/distances of jumps in centimetres. Also (for those not so mathematically inclined) the " | Performance - B |" part just means "The difference between the two values. i.e. |6-8| = 2 even if 6-8 = -2 ; just make the difference positive. Minimum amount of points per event is 0pts (no negative scores). EACH EVENT HAS THEIR OWN UNIQUE A,B and C CONSTANTS.
A couple of things can be gleaned from these tables straight away: The "B" constant is a "minimum performance" in order to score 0pts. For example if you look to the tables on the left, the B constant for the 100m for the men is 18. That means any 100m time that is 18 seconds or slower scores 0pts.
What does this mean?
The starting point of winning anything is knowing the rules of the game. Before looking at what is even allowed in competition, it'd be best to know how best to prepare for combined event competition. Scoring matters and it is evident that we can easily discern that not all events score fairly.
Mathematically speaking, the C constant determines the steepness of the slope of these increasing, non-linear functions. That is to say, the larger the C value, the steeper the curve gets with increasing performance which will lead to larger points scored. For example: a 5% further shot put throw may not necessarily mean a 5% increase in points.
The graph and table on the right illustrates this point with the men's events (although there is a similar groupings with the women's events). By far the steepest is the hurdles (although women, it's technically the 800m with hurdles being second) sprints, jumps then throws being the worst scoring.
Hurdles, Hurdles, Hurdles!!!
Hurdles is the event you "can't lose" in more ways than one.
- It's one of the first events for most youngsters doing pentathlon/heptathlons
- It has to be done under pressure/athletes find it daunting.
- Even if practiced poorly and lots of "jumping" happens, it is great for physical conditioning.
- It is the best points scorer!