Institute for the Psychology of Elite Performance, School of Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2021 Jun 28;16(6):e0253656. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0253656. eCollection 2021.
In contrast to research on team-sports, delayed maturation has been observed in higher-skilled gymnasts, leading to atypical distributions of the relative age effect. Recent studies have reported intra-sport differences in the relative age effect and given the task demands across gymnastics apparatus, we expected to find evidence for the influence of apparatus specialism. We examined the presence of a relative age effects within a sample of elite, international, women's artistic gymnasts (N = 806, Ncountries = 87), and further sampled our data from vault, bars, beam, and floor major competition finalists. Poisson regression analysis indicated no relative age effect in the full sample (p = .55; R2 adj. = .01) but an effect that manifested when analysing apparatus independently. The Index of Discrimination (ID) analysis provided evidence of an inverse relative age effect identified for beam (p = .01; ID = 1.27; R2 adj. = .12), a finding that was corroborated by a marginal effect in our vault finalists (p = .08; ID = 1.21; R2 adj. = .06). These novel findings can be attributed to the integrated influence of self-fulfilling prophecy upon coach and gymnast expectations, as well as the technical mechanisms underpinning skill development involved in the underdog hypothesis.
与团队运动的研究相反，在技术水平较高的体操运动员中观察到了成熟延迟，导致相对年龄效应的分布出现异常。最近的研究报告了同一运动项目中相对年龄效应的差异，并且考虑到体操器械的任务要求，我们预计会发现器械专业化影响的证据。我们在一组精英国际女子艺术体操运动员（N = 806，Ncountries = 87）样本中检查了相对年龄效应的存在，并进一步从跳马、高低杠、平衡木和自由体操决赛选手的样本中进行了数据分析。泊松回归分析表明，在整个样本中没有相对年龄效应（p =.55；R2 adj. =.01），但在独立分析器械时会出现这种效应。辨别指数（ID）分析提供了证据表明平衡木存在反向相对年龄效应（p =.01；ID = 1.27；R2 adj. =.12），这一发现得到了我们在跳马决赛选手中的边缘效应的证实（p =.08；ID = 1.21；R2 adj. =.06）。这些新发现可以归因于自我实现预言对教练和运动员期望的综合影响，以及支持劣势假说的技能发展所涉及的技术机制。
