Born Dennis-Peter, Lomax Ishbel, Horvath Stephan, Meisser Elena, Seidenschwarz Philipp, Burkhardt David, Romann Michael
Department for Elite Sport, Swiss Federal Institute of Sport Magglingen, Magglingen, Switzerland.
Swiss Swimming Federation, Bern, Switzerland.
Front Sports Act Living. 2020 Nov 20;2:589938. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2020.589938. eCollection 2020.
Marginal differences in race results between top swimmers have evoked the interest in competition-based success factors of long-term athlete development. To identify novel factors for the multi-dimensional model of talent development, the aim of the study was to investigate annual variation in competition performance (ACV), number of races per year, and age. Therefore, 45,398 race results of all male participants ( = 353) competing in individual events, i.e., butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle, and individual medley, at the 2018 European Long-Course Swimming Championships (2018EC) were analyzed retrospectively for all 10 years prior to the championships with Pearson's correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression analysis. Higher ranked swimmers at the 2018EC showed significant medium correlations with a greater number of races per year and small but significant correlations with higher ACV in 10 and nine consecutive years, respectively, prior to the championships. Additionally, better swimmers were older than their lower ranked peers ( = -0.21, < 0.001). Regression model explained a significant proportion of 2018EC ranking for 50 m (47%), 100 m (45%), 200 m (31%), and 400 m races (29%) but not for 800 and 1,500 m races with number of races having the largest effect followed by age and ACV. In conclusion, higher performance variation with results off the personal best in some races did not impair success at the season's main event and young competitors at international championships may benefit from success chances that increase with age. The higher number of races swum per year throughout the career of higher ranked swimmers may have provided learning opportunities and specific adaptations. Future studies should quantify these success factors in a multi-dimensional talent development model.
顶尖游泳运动员之间比赛成绩的微小差异引发了人们对长期运动员发展中基于比赛的成功因素的兴趣。为了确定人才发展多维模型的新因素，本研究的目的是调查比赛成绩的年度变化（ACV）、每年的比赛次数和年龄。因此，对参加2018年欧洲长池游泳锦标赛（2018EC）个人项目（即蝶泳、仰泳、蛙泳、自由泳和个人混合泳）的所有男性参与者（n = 353）的45398个比赛成绩进行了回顾性分析，分析了锦标赛前10年的所有数据，采用皮尔逊相关系数和多元线性回归分析。在2018EC中排名较高的游泳运动员与每年更多的比赛次数呈显著中等相关性，与锦标赛前连续10年和9年中较高的ACV呈小但显著的相关性。此外，成绩较好的游泳运动员比排名较低的同龄人年龄更大（r = -0.21，p < 0.001）。回归模型解释了50米（47%）、100米（45%）、200米（31%）和400米比赛（29%）的2018EC排名的很大一部分，但对800米和1500米比赛没有解释，比赛次数的影响最大，其次是年龄和ACV。总之，在一些比赛中成绩偏离个人最佳成绩的较高表现差异并没有损害赛季主要赛事的成功，国际锦标赛中的年轻选手可能会受益于随着年龄增长而增加的成功机会。排名较高的游泳运动员在整个职业生涯中每年参加的比赛次数较多，这可能提供了学习机会和特定的适应性。未来的研究应该在多维人才发展模型中量化这些成功因素。
