| Autor: |
Rodríguez-Adalia L; Catalonian Swimming Federation, Diputació St., 237, 08007 Barcelona, Spain.; Faculty of Sports Sciences, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Carlos III Avenue, 45008 Toledo, Spain., Veiga S; Health and Human Performance Department, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Martin Fierro St., 28024 Madrid, Spain., Santos Del Cerro J; Department of Statistics, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 45008 Toledo, Spain., González-Ravé JM; Sports Training Laboratory, Faculty of Sports Sciences, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Carlos III Avenue, 45008 Toledo, Spain. |
| Abstrakt: |
The aims of the present research were to estimate the age of peak performance (APP) and to examine the role of previous experience at the world-level open water race performances. Finishing positions and age of swimmers (639 females and 738 males) in the 10-km events of World Championship (WCH) and Olympic Games (OG) from 2000 to 2019 were obtained from the official results websites. Years of previous experience were computed using the number of previous participations in WCH or OG. APP was estimated using quadratic models of the 10th percentile top race positions and resulted in 28.94 years old for males (R 2 = 0.551) and 27.40 years old for females (R 2 = 0.613). Regression analysis revealed an improvement of 1.36 or 8.19 finishing positions for each additional year of age or experience, respectively (R 2 = 0.157). However, significant differences ( p < 0.001) between age and experience showed that the swimmer's age became less relevant for performance as years of experience increased. These results, in terms of age, are in line with other mass-start disciplines of similar duration (≈2 h) and, in terms of experience, confirm the importance of previous participation in improving tactical decision making during open water races. |
