Women's Decathlon 2018

[polevaultpower]

We are having a Women's Decathlon Championship this summer! June 30-July 1 in Grass Valley, CA.

Check out the great article FloTrack put together:

https://www.flotrack.org/articles/6206343-the-inaugural-womens-decathlon-championship-is-a-big-deal-and-heres-why

In the future, I hope to have the meet later in the summer so that it is accessible to heptathletes that aren't competing in international championships.

[bambam1729]

This is so great of PVP/Becca. The flotrack article even says that the PVP site is putting up some prize money for the women. Kudos / chapeau / way to go / and all other good things to PVP/Becca

[Atticus]

Kudos / chapeau / way to go / and all other good things to PVP/Becca

Ditto!

The LEAST USATF could do (there's so many things they should be doing to support gender equity in this regard) is declare it THE USATF wDec Championships!

[polevaultpower]

We are on the list of National Championships on the USATF website

[Atticus]

We are on the list of National Championships on the USATF website

Yay! Does that mean I have to unsubscribe to the Facebook group, "Im tired of USATF and IAAF crippling our sport"?

[Master403]

Kudos to PVP for her efforts in promoting the women's decathlon.

However, I must take exception to Stacy Dragila's quote from the linked article.

Women wanted to pole vault for so long, but so many people in our sport—especially men—just didn’t think we had to (sic) upper body strength to do it.

In 1990 and 1992 I submitted proposed amendments to the Competition Rules to add the women's pole vault as an official event. The first proposal did not make it into the package because it was deemed inappropriate for the submission to come from me, as I was not a representative of the women's t&f committee. The second time, the proposal was published for action by the Rules Committee and delegates to the national meeting, but Pat Rico and Lynn Cannon approached me in a hallway and firmly stated that their committee opposed the proposal as they had recently added the hammer throw and steeplechase and did not want to add another event. I reluctantly withdrew my submission.

I assign any responsibility for the retarded development in the women's pole vault to the leadership of the women's committee, and am greatly bothered that one of my favorite athletes, who might have benefitted the most from earlier adoption of the vault as an official event, is not aware of where the resistance came from.

As for the women's decathlon, I have been in a fraction of the discussions that PVP has been in, and my take is that, by far, the primary resistance to the event is from current heptathletes, and, as with the vault, not from the stereotypical stodgy old male.

It is important to know who the opposition is if you want to win the battle.

[26mi235]

Citing the resistance from current Heptathletes and their coaches is a foregone conclusion, of course they would be dead-set against it ['we are going to take your event and make it so that your ranking will plummet' does not lead to any surprises]. It is all the other players that are important, any biggest resistance aside from the very disadvantaged group is really the place for according resistance.

Basically the situation is: Aside from the obvious resistance from the subset that would lose greatly from the switch, where does the resistance come from.

[polevaultpower]

Yay! Does that mean I have to unsubscribe to the Facebook group, "Im tired of USATF and IAAF crippling our sport"?

I made a Women's Decathlon Facebook group, please come join that, any of you!!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/womensdecathlon/

[polevaultpower]

Kudos to PVP for her efforts in promoting the women's decathlon.

However, I must take exception to Stacy Dragila's quote from the linked article.



In 1990 and 1992 I submitted proposed amendments to the Competition Rules to add the women's pole vault as an official event. The first proposal did not make it into the package because it was deemed inappropriate for the submission to come from me, as I was not a representative of the women's t&f committee. The second time, the proposal was published for action by the Rules Committee and delegates to the national meeting, but Pat Rico and Lynn Cannon approached me in a hallway and firmly stated that their committee opposed the proposal as they had recently added the hammer throw and steeplechase and did not want to add another event. I reluctantly withdrew my submission.

I assign any responsibility for the retarded development in the women's pole vault to the leadership of the women's committee, and am greatly bothered that one of my favorite athletes, who might have benefitted the most from earlier adoption of the vault as an official event, is not aware of where the resistance came from.

As for the women's decathlon, I have been in a fraction of the discussions that PVP has been in, and my take is that, by far, the primary resistance to the event is from current heptathletes, and, as with the vault, not from the stereotypical stodgy old male.

It is important to know who the opposition is if you want to win the battle.

1. Thank you for your efforts. They mattered, even when it didn't feel like they were making a difference.

2. No one holds back women like other women.

3. The history goes back much further though. There actually were women vaulting in the 1890s-1920s. Unfortunately, cultural norms began to dictate that exercise was bad for women, and once AAU consolidated control of women's track and field, they were unwilling to consider the event.

4. Athletes rarely know the full story of the politics around their event. Stacy's coach probably didn't even know all of that.

[polevaultpower]

Citing the resistance from current Heptathletes and their coaches is a foregone conclusion, of course they would be dead-set against it ['we are going to take your event and make it so that your ranking will plummet' does not lead to any surprises]. It is all the other players that are important, any biggest resistance aside from the very disadvantaged group is really the place for according resistance.

Basically the situation is: Aside from the obvious resistance from the subset that would lose greatly from the switch, where does the resistance come from.

The issue is really that the powers that be are absolutely unwilling to consider any scenario in which the two events co-exist. There is heavy pressure to shrink the sport, and no one at the top is thinking outside the Olympics box.

Of course the heps don't want to switch. If we were to switch someday, it would need to be a long phase-in period, at least two full Olympic cycles, and begin at the junior level. No elite heptathletes deserve to have their career abruptly ended over event politics.

During that time you MUST have both events in a meaningful way.

That's really what has been the dealbreaker.

People bitch and moan about our sport being so heavily tied to the Olympics, but the powers that be tend to make all of their decisions around what is best for the Olympics.

Our World Championships could be conducted in a variety of formats. You absolutely _could_ contest the dec and the hep for the women at the same World Champs. The schedule more than allows for it. You could also conduct all three combined events on the first two days of the Championships in a smaller, cozier stadium. The marathon and race walks are conducted outside the main stadium. Why is it sacrilegious to consider contesting the combined events outside the main stadium? Perhaps they would be more appealing to the average fan if they were presented in a way that was easy to follow and not constantly being distracted by other events. In a cozy stadium like the current Hayward field instead of some huge Olympic style stadium.

Everyone complains about the traditional track meet being broken but very few people are out there proposing alternatives. They are just trying to make the same broken model run faster.

[Atticus]

I made a Women's Decathlon Facebook group, please come join that, any of you!!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/womensdecathlon/

Just did - thanks!

[aaronk]

So, WHO is gonna be there?
And what's the event order?
Points tables specifically for a WOMEN's Dec??

Would LOVE to see some event specialists enter---Sandi Morris & Jenn Suhr!
Speedsters (100-400 & Hurdles) like Queen Harrison, Syd McLaughlin!
Throwers like Maggie Ewen or Alyssa Wilson or Janeah Stewart!
And of course, great US heptathletes---Erica Bougard & Kendell Williams!!

ADD: Just tried to join Becca's FB group, but got a "pending" message!
Let me assume she will approve me for membership!
LOL

[Master403]

And what's the event order?
Points tables specifically for a WOMEN's Dec?

The IAAF Scoring Tables for Combined Events, dated 2001, has all the necessary tables for the women's decathlon.

From that publication:

As we mention in the previous edition the trend in the late 1990s was to study a further step of the combined events for Women and maybe the introduce a Decathlon for Women in the third millennium.
In order to achieve this goal, the IAAF Technical Committee together with the Women's Committee decided in the year 2000 to create a Working Group consisting of several experts in that field. Athletes, coaches, meeting organisers and member federations have been consulted with the aim of studying the need of this new event.
Based on their research and experience, the members of the Working Group and the Technical Committee recommended to add the women's decathlon in addition to the heptathlon. This proposal was supported by the IAAF Council in March and voted by the Congress in August 2001.
Although it was envisaged to keep Men's and Women's decathlon identical, problems would appear when these two events should be organised at the same stadium at the same time. It was therefore proposed to keep the men's order of
running events and inverse the order of field events between the two days.
It is planned to organise this new event at Continental and National competitions during the year 2002 and possibly to have a first World Record ratified at the end of 2003. No deadline has been fixed yet for the introduction of Women's Decathlon into the World Championships programme.

So why did it take until 2016 for the USATF Women's Committee to add decathlon as an optional championship for women?

Thank you PVP for taking the lead for the open athletes.

[bambam1729]

And what's the event order?

Are you going to use the men's decathlon event order or the IAAF recommended women's event order? The field events for women are opposite those for men. That was planned so the events could be held concurrently, but with only a women's event you could do the classical men's order.

[Atticus]

Are you going to use the men's decathlon event order or the IAAF recommended women's event order? The field events for women are opposite those for men. That was planned so the events could be held concurrently, but with only a women's event you could do the classical men's order.

I would think you would HAVE to use the IAAF order. Putting the events in men's order changes how the women score. A score from a non-IAAF Dec would not = an IAAF one.