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The best triathletes are older in longer race distances – a comparison between Olympic, Half-Ironman and Ironman distance triathlon
The purpose of this study was (i) to determine the age of peak triathlon performance for world class athletes competing in Olympic, Half-Ironman and Ironman distance races and (ii) to investigate a potential change in the age of the annual fastest athletes across years. Data of ages and race times o...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer International Publishing
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4176841/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25279329 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-3-538 |
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author | Knechtle, Raphael Rüst, Christoph Alexander Rosemann, Thomas Knechtle, Beat |
author_facet | Knechtle, Raphael Rüst, Christoph Alexander Rosemann, Thomas Knechtle, Beat |
author_sort | Knechtle, Raphael |
collection | PubMed |
description | The purpose of this study was (i) to determine the age of peak triathlon performance for world class athletes competing in Olympic, Half-Ironman and Ironman distance races and (ii) to investigate a potential change in the age of the annual fastest athletes across years. Data of ages and race times of all finishers in the international top races over the three distances between 2003 and 2013 were collected and the annual top ten women and men were analysed using linear, non-linear and hierarchical multivariate regression analyses. The age of peak male performance was 27.1 ± 4.9 years in the Olympic, 28.0 ± 3.8 years in the Half-Ironman and 35.1 ± 3.6 years in the Ironman distance and the age of peak male performance was higher in the Ironman compared to the Olympic (p < 0.05) and the Half-Ironman distance (p < 0.05) triathlon. The age of peak female performance was 26.6 ± 4.4 years in the Olympic, 31.6 ± 3.4 years in the Half-Ironman and 34.4 ± 4.4 years in the Ironman distance and the age of peak female performance was lower in the Olympic compared to the Half-Ironman (p < 0.05) and Ironman distance (p < 0.05) triathlon. The age of the annual top ten women and men remained unchanged over the last decade in the Half-Ironman and the Ironman distance. In the Olympic distance, however, the age of the annual top ten men decreased slightly. To summarize, the age of peak triathlon performance was higher in the longer triathlon race distances (i.e. Ironman) and the age of the annual top triathletes remained mainly stable over the last decade. With these findings top athletes competing at world class level can plan their career more precisely as they are able to determine the right time in life to switch from the shorter (i.e. Olympic distance) to the longer triathlon race distances (i.e. Half-Ironman and Ironman) in order to continuously compete in triathlon races at world class level. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4176841 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Springer International Publishing |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-41768412014-10-02 The best triathletes are older in longer race distances – a comparison between Olympic, Half-Ironman and Ironman distance triathlon Knechtle, Raphael Rüst, Christoph Alexander Rosemann, Thomas Knechtle, Beat Springerplus Research The purpose of this study was (i) to determine the age of peak triathlon performance for world class athletes competing in Olympic, Half-Ironman and Ironman distance races and (ii) to investigate a potential change in the age of the annual fastest athletes across years. Data of ages and race times of all finishers in the international top races over the three distances between 2003 and 2013 were collected and the annual top ten women and men were analysed using linear, non-linear and hierarchical multivariate regression analyses. The age of peak male performance was 27.1 ± 4.9 years in the Olympic, 28.0 ± 3.8 years in the Half-Ironman and 35.1 ± 3.6 years in the Ironman distance and the age of peak male performance was higher in the Ironman compared to the Olympic (p < 0.05) and the Half-Ironman distance (p < 0.05) triathlon. The age of peak female performance was 26.6 ± 4.4 years in the Olympic, 31.6 ± 3.4 years in the Half-Ironman and 34.4 ± 4.4 years in the Ironman distance and the age of peak female performance was lower in the Olympic compared to the Half-Ironman (p < 0.05) and Ironman distance (p < 0.05) triathlon. The age of the annual top ten women and men remained unchanged over the last decade in the Half-Ironman and the Ironman distance. In the Olympic distance, however, the age of the annual top ten men decreased slightly. To summarize, the age of peak triathlon performance was higher in the longer triathlon race distances (i.e. Ironman) and the age of the annual top triathletes remained mainly stable over the last decade. With these findings top athletes competing at world class level can plan their career more precisely as they are able to determine the right time in life to switch from the shorter (i.e. Olympic distance) to the longer triathlon race distances (i.e. Half-Ironman and Ironman) in order to continuously compete in triathlon races at world class level. Springer International Publishing 2014-09-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4176841/ /pubmed/25279329 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-3-538 Text en © Knechtle et al.; licensee Springer. 2014 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Knechtle, Raphael Rüst, Christoph Alexander Rosemann, Thomas Knechtle, Beat The best triathletes are older in longer race distances – a comparison between Olympic, Half-Ironman and Ironman distance triathlon |
title | The best triathletes are older in longer race distances – a comparison between Olympic, Half-Ironman and Ironman distance triathlon |
title_full | The best triathletes are older in longer race distances – a comparison between Olympic, Half-Ironman and Ironman distance triathlon |
title_fullStr | The best triathletes are older in longer race distances – a comparison between Olympic, Half-Ironman and Ironman distance triathlon |
title_full_unstemmed | The best triathletes are older in longer race distances – a comparison between Olympic, Half-Ironman and Ironman distance triathlon |
title_short | The best triathletes are older in longer race distances – a comparison between Olympic, Half-Ironman and Ironman distance triathlon |
title_sort | best triathletes are older in longer race distances – a comparison between olympic, half-ironman and ironman distance triathlon |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4176841/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25279329 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-3-538 |
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