Hi everyone,

the 2nd Serpentine Decathlon is scheduled to take place on Saturday 6th May at Battersea track (subject to getting final approval from the committee, which depends on enough helpers to run the event safely and effectively). This year the decathlon also forms part of the multi-sport championship.

The reasons for the event are 3 fold, firstly to give the existing T&F athletes in the club a chance to get some practice in for the season commencing next week, to find out which events other than their normal ones they are good at, and also (and most importantly) as an opportunity for new people to come out and try T&F events outside of proper competition. T&F is great fun, and I hope that lots of you will come out and give it a go. There will be no pressure to do all the events, come along and do all 10, or just a single event, or however many you like. Everybody is encouraged to come along and give it a go, no matter what standard.

Decathlon is now an official IAAF event for both Men and Women, and is likely to take over from the Women\’s Heptathlon as an Olympic event in the future. The only different event between the Men\’s and Women\’s decathlon is the Hurdles, 110m for men and 100m for women. This year we\’ll be following the official order of events for both men & women, so the field events will run simultaneously to speed things up a bit. The proposed timetable is below, but please note that we may stray from this quite a bit depending on how quickly we can get through each event, so if you are planning on coming late for a particular event(s) only, get there in plenty of time. If you are doing the 100m (1st event), be there by 9:30am at latest. You want to make sure you are well warmed up for this event.

Registration will be via My Events on the Serpentine website (accessed via the planner section). Please add your name there to indicate you will be competing. Please use the same feature to indicate if you are available to help. There is no charge for the day, the club is covering the costs. The event is for members only.

The event will basically work like this: Before each event there will be a quick talk / demonstration by someone who is competent at the event, who will give some tips and let you know any safety considerations. Then for the field events, each athlete will have 1 practice attempt, then the competition will commence. For the field events you will likely get 3 trials at each discipline, though this may change depending on time. There will also be an opportunity for some hurdling practice before that event. There will be an awful lot to get through in a single day, so it will be very important that everyone follows the instructions of the officials (also vital for safety reasons), and takes their turn at each event promptly. You will be called for your turn, and if you are not ready to go almost immediately, you will miss that round, tough but otherwise we will never get finished. I strongly suggest you get there in plenty of time for the warm up. The 100m sprint is something you are unlikely to have done for a while, and your legs need to be fully warmed up and stretched beforehand, otherwise you may pull a muscle. You also need to sort out where your long jump run up starts (bring something to use as a marker).

What to bring? Make sure you dress appropriately, especially if it is cool as there will be some standing around waiting for your turn, so you may need a jacket and something to keep your legs warm. If you have spikes bring them along, cross country spikes are fine, but you\’ll need to put shorter spikes in them, max 6mm. You\’ll also need normal trainers, you can\’t do shot put or discus in spikes. Also I suggest you bring along your lunch, snacks and drinks.

As you can imagine an event like this will need quite a few helpers, you don\’t have to have any experience, though it will also be good to get some people who do have (and if you just want to take a look, spectators are also welcome). Also please note that competitors may be asked to help out while they are not competing. The reigning champions from last year are Adrian Matthews and Rachel Brough, hopefully they will be there to defend their titles! Hope to see lots of you there.

SERPENTINE DECATHLON
2006

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

Mens Events Ladies events
9.00 Arrive / changing / register
9.15 Warm up
9.45 Briefing
10.00 100m 100m
10.30 Long Jump Discus
11.00 Pole Vault
11.30 Shot Put
12.00 High Jump Javelin
12.30
13.00 400m 400m
13.30 Lunch
14.15 Hurdles Practice
14.45 110m Hurdles 100m Hurdles
15.30 Discus Long Jump
16.00 Pole Vault
16.30 Shot Put
17.00 Javelin High Jump
17.30
18.00 1500m 1500m
18.30 Finish – To the pub!