The pentathlon or women's pentathlon is a combined track and field event in which each woman competes in five separate events over one day. The distance or time for each event is converted to points via scoring tables, with the overall ranking determined by total points. Since 1949 the events have been sprint hurdling, high jump, shot put, long jump, and a flat race. The sprint hurdles distance was 80 m outdoors until 1969 and thereafter 100 m; in indoor pentathlon the distance is 60 m. The flat race was 200 m until 1976 and thereafter 800 m. In elite-level outdoor competition, the pentathlon was superseded in 1981 by the heptathlon, which has seven events, with both 200 m and 800 m, as well as the javelin throw. Pentathlon is still contested at school and masters level and indoors.
Ashia Hansen, is a retired British triple jumper. Fourth in the 1996 Olympic final, she broke the world indoor record when winning the 1998 European Indoor title, and went on to win gold medals at the World Indoor Championships in 1999 and 2003, at the Commonwealth Games in 1998 and 2002, and at the 2002 European Championships. Her British records of 15.15 metres and 15.16 metres, still stand.
Debbie Arden Brill, is a Canadian high jump athlete who at the age of 16 became the first North American woman to clear 6 feet. Her reverse jumping style—which is now almost exclusively the technique of elite high jumpers—was called the Brill Bend and was developed by her when she was a child, around the same time as Dick Fosbury was developing the similar Fosbury Flop in the US. Brill won gold in the high jump at the 1970 Commonwealth Games, and at the Pan American Games in 1971. She finished 8th in the 1972 Summer Olympics, then quit the sport in the wake of the Munich massacre, returning three years later. She won gold at the IAAF World Cup in 1979, and at the 1982 Commonwealth Games. She has held the Canadian high jump record since 1969, and set the current record of 1.99 meters in 1982, a few months after giving birth to her first child.
Masters athletics is a class of the sport of athletics for athletes of 35 years of age and over. The events include track and field, road running and cross country running. Competitors are bracketed into five-year age groups. For international events the first age group is 35 to 39. Men as old as 105 and women in their 100s have competed in running, jumping and throwing events. Masters athletes are sometimes known as "veterans" and the European Masters Championships, for instance, is known as "Eurovets". This and other high level events including biennial World Championships cater largely to elite-level athletes, but many masters athletes are novices to athletics and enjoy the camaraderie offered by masters competition at the local, National and International level. Most National governing bodies for track and field hold annual Masters championships. Prestigious National meets such as the Penn Relays and the United States Olympic Trials put on exhibition events for top masters athletes. Masters athletics is growing Internationally with over 6000 athletes competing at recent World Championships. World; National and Regional records are maintained for each age group.
Ivan Sergeyevich Ukhov is a Russian high jumper. He won a gold medal at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships and is a two-time European Indoor champion. He was also the silver medallist at the 2010 European Athletics Championships and the winner of the high jump at the inaugural 2010 IAAF Diamond League. In the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, he won the gold medal, but it was later stripped for a doping violation.
Carlo Thränhardt is a retired German high jumper. He excelled at indoor competitions, setting the world indoor record on three occasions between 1984 and 1988. His best mark of 2.42 metres ranks him second on the indoor all-time list one-centimetre behind world record holder Javier Sotomayor of Cuba. The only superior outdoor performances are Sotomayor's world record of 2.45 m, and Mutaz Essa Barshim's clearance of 2.43 m in 2014. Like all modern high jumpers, Thränhardt used the Fosbury Flop style, but of the 16 men in history to have cleared 2.40 m or higher, he was only the second to do so jumping off his right leg. The first was Igor Paklin. At the European Indoor Championships, he won a gold medal in 1983 and four silver medals. Outdoors, his best championship result was winning a bronze medal at the 1986 European Championships. He also reached the Olympic finals in 1984 and 1988.
Nadine O'Connor is a retired mathematics teacher and a world record setting, hall of fame Masters Track and Field athlete. While she specializes in the pole vault, due to her athletic training, she also holds the World Masters Athletics world records in the 100 metres, 200 metres, the Indoor 60 metres and 200 metres. She also holds the American record in the long jump, 80 metre hurdles, 300 metre hurdles and pentathlon.
Kathy Bergen is an American Masters athletics track and field athlete. She is the current world record holder in the W70 100 meters and the high jump. She also holds the Indoor World records for the W65 high jump, the W70 60 meters, 200 meters and high jump. And she holds the American record for the W70 200 meters and the W65 high jump. She is the oldest woman to break the 15 second barrier in the 100 meters and to break 32 seconds in the 200 meters. She is also the first 70-year-old woman to jump 1.30 meters in the high jump at USATF Masters Championships in Sacramento in 2010.
Mary L. Bowermaster was a nurse's aide for schools in Butler County, Ohio, until a breast cancer diagnosis in 1979. After a mastectomy and successfully battling the disease, she began a second career in masters athletics.
The sports under the umbrella of athletics, particularly track and field, use a variety of statistics. In order to report that information efficiently, numerous abbreviations have grown to be common in the sport. Starting in 1948 by Bert Nelson and Cordner Nelson, Track & Field News became the leader in creating and defining abbreviations in this field. These abbreviations have also been adopted by, among others, World Athletics; the world governing body, various domestic governing bodies, the Association of Track and Field Statisticians, the Association of Road Racing Statisticians, the Associated Press, and the individual media outlets who receive their reports. These abbreviations also appear in Wikipedia.
Dimitrios Kattis is a Greek athlete who specializes in the high jump. He competed in the 1984 Olympics, clearing 2.15m but not advancing to the final round. Earlier that year competing for Panathinaikos, Athina, he was also the Greek national champion in the event, clearing 2.24m that year. He also competed in the 1982 European Athletics Indoor Championships and the 1985 IAAF World Indoor Games.
This is the progression of world record improvements of the high jump of Masters athletics.
Gabriela Mihalcea is a Romanian former track and field athlete who competed in the high jump and pole vault. She holds the Romanian record of 4.25 m for the pole vault. She was two-time national champion in high jump and a six-time pole vault champion.
This is the progression of world record improvements in different age divisions of men's triple jump in Masters athletics.
