Sport Nutrition Practice and Performance of Short Distance Runners: The Case of Oromia Athletics Clubs

Abstract

The study was aimed to assess the impact of sport nutrition practice on performance of sprinters of Oromia selected athletics club. The athlete's diet affects his or her performance directly. Competitive athletes must eat a balanced diet containing all four food groups, and eating a variety of foods within each group is essential. However, no studies conducted on the impact of nutrition on Oromia short distance runners. A cross-sectional research design was employed. Out of eight (N=8) athletics clubs Oromia athletics club, five (n=5) of them were selected as target population namely; Adama, Nekemte, Asella, Dukam and Laga-Tafo Laga Dadhi athletics clubs. The clubs were selected by using a simple random sampling technique. The total population of athletes in selected clubs was (N=175) and sampled athletes were 120 Adama (23), Nekemte, (24) Asella, Dukam (26) and Laga-Tafo-Laga Dadhi (24) athletics) were selected using a stratified sampling technique. While coaches (N=5) were selected using census sampling techniques. Data collection instrument such as questionnaire, document analysis, interviews and observation were used. Analysis was performed using SPSS 25.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) software. Frequency percentage and Simple regression was used quantitative data. Qualitative analysis was used to supplement the quantitative analysis. The result of this study shows that inadequate sprinters nutritional practice affects sprinters performance at p< 0.05. The finding of this study reveals that the majority of sprinters confirmed that sprinters did not get balanced sprinters diet due to this the sprinters performance was poor. As a recommendation, Oromia athletics club should plan for sport nutrition education and allocate enough budgets. Sprinters better extra meal apart from their clubs.