Three athletes stand out from the field as candidates to bag the gold in this event.
Jessica Ennis Hill, the World Champion from Beijing 2015 and Berlin 2009 and also Olympic Champion from 2012, available at odds 2.62 with William Hill.
Brianne Theisen Eaton, the World indoor penthathlon champion from Portland last winter and silver medalist from the Beijing and Moscow World Championships, available at 3.25 with Bet365. The Canadian is also the world leader in the event with her score of 6765 from the prestigious Hypo-meeting in the Austrian village of Gotzis.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the European indoor penthathlon champion from Prague 2015 and silver medalist in the Long Jump in the World Indoor Championship from Sopot 2014, who is priced up at 3.35 by Pinnacle.
There are several other extremely talented athletes on the starting line, such as the bronze medalist from Beijing last year; Laura Ikauniece Admidina (17 - Bwin), the recently crowned European Champion Anouk Vetter (13 - Bet365) and the winner of the US Olympic Trials Barbara Nwaba (61 - 888sports). I suspect that Vetter can possibly have peaked for the European Championships on home turf in Amsterdam and that Nwaba with her personal best of 6500 will struggle to challenge the top contenders. However the Latvian athlete Ikauniece Admidina, who only competed in the 100 metre hurdles during the European Championship in Amsetrdam and who set a personal best (6622) as runner up to Theisen Eaton in Gotzis earlier this year, has a good chance to challenge for a podium position yet again. She just turned 24 on May 31 and has performed well by her standards at major championships in the past. It should be no surprise if she turns up for the highlight of the year in excellent form yet again. She will however need to improve significantly in order to be at the top of the podium.
There are several reasons why Jessica Ennis Hill should be the clear favourite to win. Looking back at the last 7 seasons in which she has competed in a championship event, we find that in 6 of these 7 years her season best score in the heptathlon has come during the championship.
2006
Season Best heading in to the European Championship: 6269.
Score from the European Championship: 6287.
2007
Season Best heading into the World Championship. 6399.
Score from the World Championship: 6469.
2009
Season Best heading into the World Championship: 6587.
Score from the World Championship: 6731.
2010
Season Best heading in to the European Championship: 6689.
Score from the European Championship: 6823.
2011
Season Best heading into the World Championship: 6790.
Score from the World Championship. 6751.
2012
Season Best heading into the Olympics: 6906.
Score from the Olympics: 6955.
2015
Season Best heading into the World Championship: 6520.
Score from the World Championship: 6669.
On average she has improved her season best by 75 points in the championship event. She has only lost one championship event after she turned 23. In 2011 in the Daegu World Championship, she was beaten by Tatyana Chernova, who was later found guilty of doping after her samples from the 2009 World Championship were retested.
Considering that Ennis Hill’s only Heptathlon so far this year was made in unfavourable conditions in Ratingen in June, it seems even more likely that she will improve for the Olympics. She only ran 13.13 in the 100 meter hurdles in Ratingen, but this was in wet conditions with a -0.8 headwind. She improved her season best to 12.76 (+0.3) during the Diamond League event in London on July 22nd. If she improve her score from Ratingen by the same 75 points she on average has improved the last seven championship seasons, her score would equal Theisen Eaton’s personal best of 6808. Based on the facts that Ennis Hill was coming back from a slight injury in Ratingen and the poor conditions she endured for the first competition day there, I think it is likely that she will improve beyond a score of 6808. If this should happen it would require any of her competitors to set a new personal best to be able to beat her.
As the world leader in the event and reigning indoor World Champion, Brianne Theisen Eaton holds a solid claim. However she has only beaten Jessica Ennis Hill once in the heptathlon in the past and this was Ennis Hill’s first competition after giving birth. In 2015 Theisen Eaton sat her personal best while obliterating the field in Gotzis to win by more 250 points and beating Ennis Hill by 288 points. She arrived in Beijing for the world championships as most bookmaker’s favourite to win. Even so she was only able to walk away with a silver medal, which easily could have been bronze if Johnson Thompson had produced a good mark in the Long Jump. Theisen Eaton’s score of 6554 in Beijing was so inferior to what she produced in Gotzis that several people questioned her ability to deliver under pressure. Her win at home in Portland went some distance towards answering such questions, but for me there can be no doubt that Ennis Hill has been by far the better big stage performer up until today.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson has huge potential in this event. She is a world class performer in both the Long Jump and High Jump, but is struggling in the throwing events. This was extremely visible as she finished dead last in the Shot Put part of the competition in Gotzis this year, only managing a put of 11.55 meters. She went to Gotzis needing to get the Olympic qualifier of 6200 points, but she no doubt also hoped to be fighting to duplicate her victory from 2014. After the first day it looked like it would be a close fight between Theisen Eaton and Johnson Thompson for the win, but in the first event of the second day Johnson Thompson flopped so badly in the Long Jump (managing only 6.13 and 6.17) that it was obvious that Theisen Eaton would win barring a disaster. Johnson Thompson also felt a niggle in her quad during the Long Jump and took it a bit easy in the Javelin and 800 while making sure that she made the score in excess of 6200 needed to qualify for Rio.
After her abysmal performance (three no jumps) in the Long Jump part of the Heptathlon competition last year in Beijing, her every move in the Long Jump in Gotzis was followed closely. People were not impressed by what they saw. On her first jump she took off some way behind the board and only jumped 6.13. She improved to 6.17 with her last two jumps, but this is underwhelming considering her personal best of 6.92 in this event. It is unclear how much the niggle she felt in her left quadriceps muscle impacted her performance in the Long Jump.
Johnson Thompson looked exceptionally fit during the Diamond League in London. She cleared 1.95 in the High Jump without touching the bar. Reviewing that jump in slow motion it seems she would have cleared even if the bar had been a few centimeters higher. In the Long Jump she had six legal jumps between 6.60 and 6.84. Considering her potential and how awesome she looked in London, I think it is not unlikely that she will make a substantial improvement to her PB (6682) in Rio. I also feel that estimating her results is a lot harder than for Ennis Hill and Theisen Eaton.
Considering how good Ennis Hill has been in major competitions and the score she achieved coming back from injury while competing in less than perfect conditions in Ratingen, I think she has about a 45% chance of coming out on top in Rio. As such I see good value in the odds of 2.62 on offer with William Hill.
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