See this BBC webpage to see how Jessica Ennis won the gold medal.

Here is a video explaining how the Heptathlon is contested.

"Hept" means "seven", so the Heptathlon is made up different events. That is why a seven sided shape is called a .

Jessica ran the 100m hurdles in 12.54 seconds. This time has been rounded to the nearest of a second. This was the fastest ever recorded in a heptathlon.

In the high jump Jess jumped 1.86m, which is cm. Is this more than your height? Jessica is 5 foot 5 inches tall. There are 12 inches in a foot, so this means she is inches tall. 1 inch is 2.54 cm so Jess is 165cm tall (round to the nearest cm). How many cm above her height did Jess jump? cm.

In the shot put Jessica lost the lead. She threw the shot 14.28m. A Ford Focus is 4.3m long, so Jessica threw the shot about car lengths. Her opponent Skujyte threw 17.31m which is about car lengths. A shot for a female athlete weighs 4kg. That is the same as bags of sugar. 1kg is the same as 2.2 pounds, so a shot weighs pounds.


In the 200m Jessica ran a personal best of 22.83 seconds. 200m is roughly half way round the athletics track. You will notice that that the runners don't all start in line. This is because one lap on the outside lane is much longer than one lap on the inside lane.

In the Long Jump Jessica jumped 6.40m in the second round and 6.48m in the third round. This means she improved by cm in the third round. Measure out 6.48m to see how long it is. It is probably longer than the width of the room you are in! What is 6.48m in feet? 1m=3.28 feet, so 6.4m=[?] feet, which is very nearly [?] feet.

In the Javelin Jessica threw a personal best of 47.49m in her last throw. A double decker bus is about 10m long, so she threw the javelin about the length of [?] buses.

The final event was the 800m. This is twice round the track. Jess finished in 2min 8.65sec which gave her a final points total of 6,955, shattering her own UK record of 6,906, and a winning margin of 306 points from Germany’s Lilli Schwarzkopf, with Russia’s Tatyana Chernova taking the bronze for the second successive Games. This means Jessica increased her points record by and the silver medalist scored points.


Extension
This is a formula that works out the distance round a track in different lanes.
L = 2S + 2pi(R + (n-1)w)
In this formula
L= lane distance,
S= length of the straight,
R= radius of the turn,
n= lane number
w= width of the lane.
pi is roughly 3.14

The track lane widths are 1.22 meteres, the straight is 84.39m and the radius is 36.8m so the formula can be used to calculate the distance around the track in each lane. To do this you need to remember BODMAS. Use the pi button on your calculator to get an accurate answer, but round your final answer to 2 decimal places.

Lane 1= 2x84.39+2x pi x(36.8+(1-1)x1.22)
=168.78 +231.22=400m

Lane 2 = 2x84.39 +2 x pi x (36.8+ (2-1) x 1.22)
=168.78 + 238.89 = 407.67m

Your turn!

Lane 3= 2x84.39 +2 x pi x (36.8+ (-1) x 1.22)
=168.78 + =

Lane 4= 2x84.39 +2 x pi x (36.8+ (-1) x 1.22)
=168.78 + = m

Lane 5 = 2x84.39 +2 x pi x (36.8+ (-1) x 1.22)
=168.78 + =

If you continue you should find that lane 6 is 433.38 meteres, lane 7 is 446 meteres and lane 8 is 453.66 meteres.

The Maths is Fun website has an activity you can try here, to calculate the staggered starts in a 400m race.