The 1928 Olympic 800m (won by Radke of Germany, not Japan’s Hitomi) caused the Daily Mail to recruit a doctor who said endurance competitions should be banned because “women would become old too soon”; the women’s 800m did not reappear until 1960. All athletics events are fertile constructs of the human imagination and owe little to science. In 1904 the St Louis Olympic decathlon featured an 800-yard walk. The first modern decathlon was at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. There is really no earthly reason why women should not compete in a decathlon, using the same sequence as the men’s event. Demand follows supply. Competition should be offered, and if decathlon proves to be popular it should replace the heptathlon and deliver final male-female athletics equity. If not, it vanishes into oblivion, like the 1912 Olympics men’s pentathlon.
Tom McNab
St Albans, Hertfordshire
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
