Talk:heptathlon

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

Hi, I'm new to editing here, and I know the rules here aren't the same as for Wikipedia, so I thought I'd post this here before I do anything with the entry. Anyway, the definition is "an athletic contest comprising seven events; normally for women". Now, by looking at the roots of the word, I'm sure the first clause is correct. However the second clause, "normally for women", raised an eyebrow. Clicking on the link to the Wikipedia article will show that there are existing heptathlons for both men and women. So isn't this a bit misleading? — CF84 23:25, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Reading through w:Heptathlon, it sounds like women more commonly do heptathlons, while men more commonly do decathlons. w:Decathlon makes an even stronger claim, stating simply, “The decathlon is contested by male athletes, while female athletes contest the Heptathlon.” Our current definition sounds reasonable to me. —Ruakh_TALK 00:49, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, judging from the linked articles: men do decathlon and women do heptathlon -- outdoors. Indoors, do men compete in heptathlon, while women do pentathlon (though I see nothing which claims that women never competes in heptathlon indoors). And finally, "In recent years some women's decathlon competitions have been conducted" (though it isn't standard discipline in major competitions) - and iaaf recognizes outdoor's world records by male and female decathletes, but not by male heptathletes, and for indoors: only male heptathletes and female pentathletes. \Mike 15:04, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes; or, to boil it down to its essence, women more commonly do heptathlons, while men more commonly do decathlons. (Keep in mind that all of these are primarily done outdoors. There do exist indoor heptathlons, which are almost exclusively done by men, but they're not nearly as common, in either occurrence or discussion, as the outdoor ones, which are almost exclusively done by women.) Would it be better if we replaced “normally” with “usually” or “most commonly”? —Ruakh_TALK 16:27, 17 August 2008 (UTC)