Difernand Audrey, De Larochelambert Quentin, Homo Sébastien, Rousseau Florian, Antero Juliana, Toussaint Jean-François, Sedeaud Adrien
IRMES-URP 7329, Institut de Recherche Médicale et d'Epidémiologie du Sport, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France.
INSEP, Institut National du Sport, de l'Expertise et de la Performance, Paris, France.
Front Physiol. 2023 Jan 12;13:1082174. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2022.1082174. eCollection 2022.
Relative Age Effect (RAE) consists of a biased distribution of the dates of birth in a same-age group. This study aimed to investigate Relative Age Effect among French athletes in different track-and-field events, and propose a corrective adjustment method to highlight the true potential of an athlete with respect to his/her relative age. 358,610 performances from 2009 to 2019 of female and male athletes between 12 and 21 years old were collected. Relative age distributions of performances were analyzed by level of competitiveness ("All," "Top50%," "Top10%" where "all" represents all athletes, top50% and top10% represent the best 50% and 10% of athletes per age category respectively) and age category, with chi-square and odd-ratio statistics. A linear relationship between distribution of performances and age leads to a calibration coefficient allowing to rebalance the performance by considering the effect of Relative Age Effect. Validation is obtained by Wilcoxon statistical test on actual athlete data. Relative Age Effect is present in all types of events. It is larger when the level of competitiveness increases. In male 100 m sprint, 1 year difference between two athletes birth date represents an average gain of 931.01 ms (6.5%) in the U13 (Under 13 years old) and 229.65 ms (1.9%) in the U17 (Under 17 years old) categories. Our validated rebalancing methods allows to compensate for the biases induced by the relative age effect. By comparing the rebalanced performance and the realised performance of each athlete, we cannot say that they are significantly different. On average, there is no significant difference between these two performances. This study showed that there is a relative age effect among young French athletes, with an even greater effect as the level of competition increases. Thanks to the rebalancing method that has been validated, performances can now be better appreciated according to category and event.
相对年龄效应（RAE）是指同一年龄组中出生日期的分布存在偏差。本研究旨在调查法国不同田径项目运动员中的相对年龄效应，并提出一种校正调整方法，以突出运动员相对于其相对年龄的真实潜力。收集了2009年至2019年12至21岁男女运动员的358610项成绩。通过竞争力水平（“所有”、“前50%”、“前10%”，其中“所有”代表所有运动员，前50%和前10%分别代表每个年龄组中最好的50%和10%的运动员）和年龄组，采用卡方检验和比值比统计分析成绩的相对年龄分布。成绩分布与年龄之间的线性关系产生了一个校准系数，通过考虑相对年龄效应的影响来重新平衡成绩。通过对实际运动员数据进行威尔科克森统计检验来进行验证。相对年龄效应存在于所有类型的项目中。随着竞争力水平的提高，这种效应会更大。在男子100米短跑中，两名运动员出生日期相差1年，在13岁以下（U13）年龄组平均快931.01毫秒（6.5%），在17岁以下（U17）年龄组平均快229.65毫秒（1.9%）。我们经过验证的重新平衡方法能够补偿相对年龄效应引起的偏差。通过比较每位运动员重新平衡后的成绩和实际取得的成绩，我们可以说它们没有显著差异。平均而言，这两种成绩之间没有显著差异。这项研究表明，法国年轻运动员中存在相对年龄效应，并且随着竞争水平的提高，这种效应会更大。多亏了经过验证的重新平衡方法，现在可以根据类别和项目更好地评估成绩。
