Abstract
The aim of this study was to analyse the relative age effect (RAE) in competitive swimming. The best 50 Portuguese swimmers (12- to 18-year-olds) for the main individual swimming pool events of both genders were considered. Analysis was conducted on 7813 swimming event participants, taking account of respective swimmer birth dates and the Fédération Internationale de Natation points gained. Differences in the distribution of birth dates by quarter year were determined using the Chi-square. A one-way analysis of variance ANOVA was used to test for differences measured in points between individuals by quarterly birth year intervals. A two-way analysis of variance ANOVA was also conducted to test the interaction between gender and seasonal birth date with regard to performance. The results show an inequitable distribution (p<0.01) of birth dates by quarter for almost all age groups and both genders. However, the distribution of birth dates by quarter for each considered swim event shows that RAE seems to exist only for 12-year-old females and 12- to 15-year-old males. Analysing mean swimming performance, post-hoc results (p<0.01) show no consistency in RAE. Higher performance occurs among older swimmers only in 100 m butterfly (female 1998, 1st≠2nd quarter, p=0.003). The results also show no interaction between gender and seasonal birth date (p<0.01). Findings of this study show that a higher number of swimmers, particular males, are born in the first two quarters of the year, although there is mostly no effect of seasonal birth date on performance differences within the top 50 swimmers.
Highlights
The difference of age among individuals in the same grade grouping is referred as relative age effect (RAE) (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985)
The results show an inequitable distribution of birth dates by quarter for almost all age groups and both genders
The post-hoc results appear to demonstrate a weak consistency of this phenomenon in Portuguese competitive swimming, its effect on swimming performance
Summary
The difference of age among individuals in the same grade grouping is referred as relative age effect (RAE) (Barnsley, Thompson, & Barnsley, 1985). Students born shortly after the cut-off birth date are almost 1 year older than late-born students in their respective age group (Musch & Grondin, 2001). This relative age difference, which is typical of most public primary schools in the world, seems to be associated with significant variations in cognitive development (Morrison, Smith, & Dow-Ehrensberger, 1995). The inter-individual variability of growth and biological maturation of young athletes leads, inevitably, to discrete sports performance To mitigate such differences, almost all competitive sports are organised into age categories.
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