Every heptathlete dreams of it. The perfect heptathlon – executing a personal best in all seven different events – is the ultimate performance.
The combined event is punishing – 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m, long jump, javelin and 800m; all seven track and field events over two days, culminating in an overall heptathlon score.
Track and field history suggests the likelihood of all the stars aligning to create an ultimate personal best in heptathlon is extremely small – particularly with the directly conflicting physiological requirements of, for example, the shot put and the 800m.
But 21-year-old Maddie Wilson has just proved it’s possible – with personal best performances in every event on her way to smashing out a new career best heptathlon total of 5990 points, at the national combined events championships in Dunedin last month.
(As a former hepathlete (now track and field train spotter) I can say this is very rare as I have never heard of an accomplished senior athlete achieving the perfect seven. It might happen at a junior/novice level but at Maddie’s level is remarkable.)
“I knew I had some good shape going into nationals, setting four PBs in four events this year already,” the national heptathlon champion says. “But it’s a heptathlon so you accept the fact that you’re going to have ups and downs.
“We really didn’t expect the score.”
But Wilson pulled off near perfection.
Before Dunedin, Wilson’s best was 5349 points, set at last year’s Australian national championships.
After a huge day one in Dunedin, heading into the second day and the fifth event –the long jump – Wilson was determined to be ‘aggressively positive’ and just keep enjoying the event.
Going into the final 800m event, Wilson says it was the first time she could really get out the heptathlon points tables and do the maths on how fast she needed to run to break the magical 6000-point barrier.
“When it came down to the 800m and I put in my points in, I thought ‘Hold up, I could have a crack at 6000’…that was crazy!” she says.
Needing to run a five second personal best to crack the barrier, Wilson went after it running a quick 64s lap before coming home in 2m 15.4s – narrowly missing her target, but still setting a massive 641-point heptathlon personal best.
A talented junior athlete, Wilson set a New Zealand U18 record in Townsville at the 2019 Oceania championships (her total 5179 points).
At the time, she didn’t actually train for heptathlon but was encouraged by her former coach, Terry Lomax, to pursue heptathlon. She eventually moved to Christchurch to be trained by Lomax and to study civil engineering.
She laughs remembering the first time she ever did a combined event competition – a six-event hexathon – when Lomax taught her how to hurdle in the warm-up.
“I remember hitting my knee and getting a huge bruise before the race. I was so terrified!” she laughs.
Now in her fourth year at Canterbury University, Wilson feels like she’s finally arrived in heptathlon. She now trains under coach James Sandilands.
“James is new to coaching combined events as well, so I guess we’re both learning. But he’s such a great coach and person,” she says.
The winner of the men’s decathlon at the New Zealand nationals, Angus Lyver, also trains under Sandilands and alongside Wilsons’ partner, high jumper Hamish Kerr (the new world indoor high jump champion).
“I think my progress is a result of taking time to build into the heptathlon,” Wilson says. “I’ve also only taken one summer school paper which has meant I’ve had more time to focus on training and recovery.”
Even though Wilson has improved a lot lately in the high jump (setting a new personal best of 1.86m in Dunedin) and hitting 6.05m in the long jump, she feels she’s still got a lot more in the jumps events to improve on.
“It’s about getting gains across the board which is exciting. With hurdles, there’s a lot of potential to get technically better and use my new speed,” she says.
“This performance gives me confidence about what I can do.”
It’s also helpful for Wilson that there are other heptathletes in New Zealand who are able to push her, like Briana Stephenson, who scored 5534 in last December.
“Briana’s improvement has been crazy. It definitely made me want to be there as well,” Wilson says.
Stephenson went on to set a new best of 5619 points at nationals competing against Wilson – both pushing each other right to the line in the final event.
“Having her there in the 800m and us just burying ourselves, it was pretty cool,” says Wilson.
Growing up in Gisborne, Wilson was a sporty kid who started athletics at the age of seven alongside playing football and doing surf lifesaving, winning national medals in the beach sprint.
“Dad used to run 400m and 800ms. He got me into athletics and, in fact, Mum and Dad run the local athletics club in Gizzy,” she says.
Wilson will now turn her attention to competing at the national track and field championships in Wellington next week, where she will compete in the high jump, long jump and shot put. That leads into her next heptathlon at the Australian national championships in April.
“There’s always so much to work on in heptathlon. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming but there’s always so many areas you can improve on,” she says.
“I know that I can do it now and I belong in this event.”
How Maddie Wilson reached 5990 points at the NZ combined events championships:
100m hurdles – 14.55 PB
High Jump – 1.86m PB
Shot – 12.51m PB
200m – 24.67 (2.8) *
Long Jump – 6.05m PB
Javelin – 40.48m – PB
800m – 2:15.14 – PB
*Technically the 200m is over the legal wind reading of 2.0m/s limit. However, in combined events for the overall heptathlon score to be legal the three wind readings across 100m hurdles, 200m and long jump must not exceed 6.0m/s. So this columnist – being a former heptathlete – includes this as a personal best.
