There have probably been previous organisations of indoor women's heptathlon. And in any case, there have been several regional competitions in France prior to the X-Athletics meeting where a women's indoor heptathlon was staged. But the one in Aubière on January 27-28 was the first official one, taking place in a competition which is part of the World Athletics combined events world tour.
Being the first "official" competition (although I don't know whether World Athletics is considering that event official or is just tolerating its inclusion in the program) it should lead to a world record, the first of the kind. But here things get complicated. When the women's decathlon was introduced, scoring tables were available and a minimum mark of 8000 points was fixed as a prerequisite for the homologation of a world record. In the case of the indoor heptathlon the problem is that the current scoring tables for women's events do not include marks for the 60 m and the 1000 m. This is utterly ridiculous. Where are the T&F statisticians? Are we back to the Dark Coubertenian Ages when women's events were considered a no-no in Athletics?
Anyhow the first official women's heptathlon took place and it was a success. The field was small but for a first of the kind that was not a disadvantage. On the contrary, it helped have the event well-focused. There were four french and two american participants. J. Bruce was the best decathlete among the six with a 6659 personal best. The other US athlete, L. Kuntz (a 5293 points decathlete) is the current world record holder for icosathlon for women, with 11653 points. R. Bidois and A. Audigier were the two most experienced decathletes of the french contingent with 6138 and 6107 points, A. Previdi having a 5507 personal best. Curiously the winner of the event N. Desailly was the only one among the six not having a decathlon experience.
Desailly took control of the event from the outset and never relinquished it till the end. Her performance 5761 points (very close to her personal best of 5695 in the outdoors heptathlon) is the best performance for the event. Is that a world record? Alas, no. The problem with the scoring tables offers the perfect excuse for World Athletics to ignore this event. When you visit the individual athletes' pages on the WA site, you can find the results of the individual events (I checked the pole vault ones and they were all registered) but there is no mention of the indoor heptathlon. I am convinced that, despite lengthy speeches insisting on the contrary, World Athletics does not care much for women's events. And combined events athletes are considered troublemakers since they started fighting for the inclusion of the decathlon in the official women's program. So, women's indoor heptathlon faces an uphill battle while WA will try to kill it pretexting that there is no available scoring or, even more preposterous, that proposing an official scoring for the two missing events will require years of studies and a disproportionate investment. But I am convinced that in the end women will prevail and one day the last bastion of disparity will fall.
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