2015 World Championships in Athletics – Women's heptathlon

Hanna Kasyanova (née Melnychenko) of Ukraine entered the competition as defending champion, although the favourite for the competition was the silver medalist of 2013 World Championships Brianne Theisen-Eaton who is the world leader by a margin of more than 250 points. Other potential winners and medalists were 2009 World and 2012 Olympic champion Jessica Ennis-Hill, returning from giving birth to her first child, 2015 European pentathlon champion and 2014 world number one Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Nadine Broersen, Carolin Schäfer, Barbara Nwaba, Nadine Visser and Nafissatou Thiam.^[3]

The returning champion Kasyanova did not start. The American champion Nwaba fell out of contention from the gun of the first race, misstepping the first hurdle and falling at the next. Meanwhile, Olympic champion Ennis-Hill made it clear she was intending to take this championship. Visser started strongly with two personal bests, her 12.81 hurdles just missing the national record that is almost six years older than she is. Johnson-Thompson joined her hyphenated British teammate in the medal hunt with a 1.89 high jump and a 200 metres win and personal bests in the other two events. Lurking in fourth place after the first day was returning silver medalist and world leader Theisen-Eaton who had been struggling through her last couple of events.

As the second day began, Theisen-Eaton excelled in the long jump while Johnson-Thompson was unable to land a legal jump, taking her out of the hunt and reshuffling the top athletes. Also joining the medal hunt was the top long jumper of the day, Claudia Rath. Anastasiya Mokhnyuk moved into the third-place position while Ennis-Hill's lead was over a hundred points. The javelin throw is not a strong event for any of the jumpers allowing strong throwers Laura Ikauniece-Admidiņa and the other Dutch Nadine Broersen to move up into the top four. Theisen-Eaton injured her groin during the javelin but made it to the start line of the final event intending to run for a medal. Theisen-Eaton ran hard at the front of the final group, chased only by Ennis-Hill, the pair clearly out-distancing the rest of the leader group. But Ennis-Hill was not just satisfied by winning on points, she stamped an exclamation point on the win by marking Theisen-Eaton to the final straight then sprinting past. Ikauniece-Admidiņa held on to third place with her Latvian National Record while Boersen and Mokhnyuk suffered several seconds further back.^[4]

The result was that Ennis-Hill won gold by 115 points. This was her narrowest winning margin in a World Athletics Championships heptathlon. She didn't win any individual events but she placed second in the 100 metres hurdles, high jump, 200 metres and 800 metres as well as placing fourth in the long jump.

Prior to the competition, the records were as follows:^[5]

World record	Jackie Joyner-Kersee (USA)	7291	Seoul, South Korea	24 September 1988
Championship record	Jackie Joyner-Kersee (USA)	7128	Rome, Italy	1 September 1987
World leading	Brianne Theisen-Eaton (CAN)	6808	Götzis, Austria	31 May 2015
African record	Margaret Simpson (GHA)	6423	Götzis, Austria	29 May 2005
Asian record	Ghada Shouaa (SYR)	6942	Götzis, Austria	26 May 1996
North, Central American and Caribbean record	Jackie Joyner-Kersee (USA)	7291	Seoul, South Korea	24 September 1988
South American record	Lucimara da Silva (BRA)	6160	Barquisimeto, Venezuela	10 June 2012
European record	Carolina Klüft (SWE)	7032	Osaka, Japan	26 August 2007
Oceanian record	Jane Flemming (AUS)	6695	Auckland, New Zealand	28 January 1990

All times are local times (UTC+8)