The aim of this paper is to process and evaluate the peak performance age in athletics. The knowledge in this field of study plays an important role by long term planning in sport training theory. The object of this paper is analyzing the top world’s championships (World Championship, European Championship and the Olympic Games) between years 1970 – 2007. Our study is based on status description using all three advisable methods (normative investigation, developmental survey and case study). During the data collecting procedure we have used both, the cross-sectional and longitudinal survey. Within our investigation we tried to answer questions concerned with significant features of the peak performance age, possibility to state the age accurately, and to monitor its progress. The needed information has been gathered from the official internet sites from each sport federation (national and international). The missing personal information were gathered from the championships, the International Olympic Committee, and personal sites of each athlete. To trace back the older information we used the traditional resources. Our data set includes 6314 athletes in total (3474 men, 2840 women). Some of the events have binomial distribution which enables the accurate peak performance age identification. The peak performance age has slowly increased in sprint events, and slowly decreased in long distance runs. At present, the age for both sexes moves around 25 and 26 years (except the marathon race). In addition, in long distance races is found a big disproportion between European and World Championships. In 10 km long race is the difference of 4 years in average age! We believe that our results may be of benefit to the individual sport federations, trainers and athletes themselves in their long-term planning of their sport preparation.

Department of Physical Education and Sport Pedagogical Faculty The University of South Bohemia

Analýza věku vrcholné výkonnosti v atletice

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