The heptathlon is starting, and it’s great. Here’s how it works.

If it seems like you need an advanced degree to set this up, you’re right. The heptathlon’s scoring system was devised by Dr. Karl Ulbrich, an Austrian mathematician.

The heptathlon made its Olympic debut in 1984’s Los Angeles Games, replacing the pentathlon (which is same thing, minus the 800m and javelin throw). Its seven events are a measure of strength and versatility. The event’s unrivaled empress is Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who set the world and Olympic record in 1988 with a score of 7,291. Since then, no other competitor has come within 250 points of breaking her mark.

The heptathlon is the female Olympic equivalent of the men’s decathlon, only with three fewer events for some reason. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) only began putting scoring procedures in place for a women’s decathlon in 2001. While a jump up from a seven-discipline event to a 10-discipline one may be in the sport’s future, it still seems to be a point on the horizon for track and field.

The basic premise is that a high-level performance in each event should score a competitor approximately 1,000 points. There’s room to exceed that standard, and room to fall short.

There are three different equations to create the scores for each event in the heptathlon. For running events, it’s the

seen above, where P is the number of points scored, T is the competitor’s time, and a, b and c are Ulbrich’s specially derived coefficients. These coefficients change for each event:

Here’s the equation for jumping events.

And here’s how the throwing events are scored.

So, a solid time of 23.8 seconds in the 200m run would net a competitor 1,000 points. A world record run of 21.34 seconds would count for about 1,251 points. A slow time of 25 seconds would count for only 887.3 points. There are also minimum marks athletes need to hit in order to avoid zeroing out for an event.

The relatively complex equations behind the heptathlon allow the event to be run to the same standards each year. Rather than awarding points relative to placement, like you would at an NCAA track meet, these scores allow for comparison into the past and future.

The incremental scoring changes also make it more difficult for less-rounded athletes to win the event based on their dominance in one or two events. Scores in each event are relative to one another. Losing by three-tenths of a second in the 200m run is the rough equivalent to losing by three feet in the javelin throw, and so on.

Women with hyphenated last names, coincidentally. Check out the podium at the 2015 World Championships. In order, you had Jessica Ennis-Hill (GBR), Brianne Theisen-Eaton (CAN), and Laura Ikauniece-Admidiņa (LAT). Ennis-Hill is also the defending Olympic champion. No member of that group has ever cracked the 7,000-point barrier (only three women ever have), but Theisen-Eaton’s score of 6,808 last May is the highest score the sport has seen since those London Games, so the Canadian has as good a chance as anyone. Aside from her and Ennis-Hill, Brit Katarina Johnson-Thompson is a candidate to take home gold.

It seems unlikely any of the American competitors -- Barbara Nwaba, Heather Miller-Koch, or Kendell Williams -- will make it to the podium. At 80:1, Miller-Koch’s underdog status is about as optimistic as betting sites are willing to get about Team USA’s chances.

A men’s heptathlon does exist. It traditionally only takes place in indoor track meets and is not an Olympic event. Its seven competitions are the 60m dash, 60m hurdles, pole vault, long jump, shot put, high jump and 1000m run.

There’s also the modern pentathlon. It technically has four events, and they are connected to each other by the same strands of DNA that suggest Gary Busey and a banana are 95 percent alike.

That event has been part of the Olympics since 1912 and was originally created as a tribute to both the classic Games’ pentathlon (running, wrestling, discus, javelin, long jump) and Sweden’s tradition of multi-sport military games. Not surprisingly, Swedes won eight of the first nine golds awarded in the event. It has never been won by someone outside of Europe, Russia or the former U.S.S.R in men’s or women’s competition.