Women's Heptathlon and the 1999 Javelin Change

[olorin]

This is exactly my point. It actually took a significant amount of technical skill to exploit the aerodynamic potential of the old javelins, especially the men. The ones most able to do this were specialist throwers throwing the big distances not mult event athletes.

50-60 m for men and 40-50m for women would not gain much in the way of distance even with a skilled thrower.

Also, people forget that there was a negative side to the more sensitive aerodynamics of the old javelins where you would lose more distance from a poorly angled javelin plus you were more likely to foul and lose good throws.

Overall, any differences between old and new spec was a wash at the distances thrown by low skilled throwers, so I seen no value in worrying about chaning to the scoring tables - it's a non event.

Completely agree with El Toro, and the data also support this notion.
Of the best 471 performances in the heptathlon (per IAAF website) 260 are done with the old specification and 211 with the new one.
The average for the old specification is 45.43, the new specification is 46.48.

[Gabriella2]

Completely agree with El Toro, and the data also support this notion.
Of the best 471 performances in the heptathlon (per IAAF website) 260 are done with the old specification and 211 with the new one.
The average for the old specification is 45.43, the new specification is 46.48.

I was looking for something and came across this, which made me look into a bit more.

I think just looking at pre spec v new spec is a bit of a red herring. Current women have learned to throw with the new model and never had a chance to throw (further) with the old model. It's not fair to compare them with those who threw the old model. It's too simplistic.

We need to look at the throws of the women who were competing during the change and see what affect it had on average performances. And you have to consider that the women have improved over the years technically in some events.

We also need to consider changes in training approach and the make-up of a heptathlete, which has changed through the 80s and 90s until now. You go back to the 80's and the top East Germans were all relatively average in the JT, but excellent in the 200 & LJ. They didnt focus on the JT. Once you get into the 1990's (and no more GDR!), JT performances in the heptathlon markedly improve: in 83 & 87 World Champs, the average JT performance of the top 10 throwers was just 43.99 & 43.06. When you get into the 1990's it jumps up to over 47m.

Many women now more focus more explicitly on the javelin, and training knowledge has improved in the last 10-20 years. The last 5 years has seen a massive improvement in JT performances in the heptathlon. On the other hand, Long jump performances have gone down for the top heptathletes, as have 200m times.

The best years for the JT in the heptathlon have been in the last 5 years. 2012 was the best year; in London we saw 7 women throw over 51m! The average of the top 10 throwers was 51.78.
The next best years in Global Champs were 2017 (top 10 av of 51.23); 2015 (top 10 av of 50.84) 2016 (top 10 av of 50.63) and 2011 (top 10 av of 49.71).

If you look at the results, the JT was improving steadily in the 1990’s and was hovering around the 49m mark from 93 to 99, then the change in specification came, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we see a drop in the curve and we’re back to the low 47’s not jumping back over 48 until 2004. 2000 and 2001 saw the worst top ten average JT in a champs since the 1980s. 2003 was only just better than 1992, but still worse than 99, 95 and 93. I don’t think this is a coincidence.

[El Toro]

I was looking for something and came across this, which made me look into a bit more.

You raise some interesting points but I don't think there is sufficient available data to test the issue fully.

As you point out, there might have been a change in attitude or skill as to where points could be gained, so any consequent rebalancing of training focus could have had a bigger impact than the actual specification change.

We'll just have to wait until I get around to restarting my long dormant Heptathlon data digitisation project.