Dick Fosbury. His is a story of unique success, and not only for theinvention of the dorsal high jump. Because, as one would say of a violin virtuoso like Niccolò Paganini, he did not give any replies. He won the Olympic gold medal (a new record at 2.24 centimeters) in Mexico City in 1968 and then retired. In some ways, a truly curious story. Also because the style he created then became a reality for jumpers, supplanting other ways of clearing the bar.
The Fosbury story, in some way, tells us that there are moments in an athlete’s life that become crucial. And the Olympics, with their four-year repetitiveness, are a competition where you have to achieve the best. Exactly, but being every four years, the games can “meet” the athlete in the peak performance phase or maybe when his psychophysical conditions are not optimal. This obviously affects training and preparation.
But can we calculate whether the time of the Olympic Games really combines with the maximum performance of an athlete? And Can statistics help in this, to define the ideal age? for athletics trials? An answer comes from a research published in the journal Significance and conducted by two experts from the University of Waterloo, David Awosoga and Matthew Chow
What is the ideal age?
In general terms, the evolution of performance in athletics follows the classic bell curve. There is a period of growth, you reach a peak with the best performance, then you aim to maintain stability. But over time, obviously if there are no ailments, you tend to decline.
The experts examined, cross-referencing age and career results, the year-by-year evolution of every track athlete who has competed in an individual event at the Olympics since the 1996 Games in Atlanta. They looked at data on gender, nationality, type of event, how long the athlete had been training at the elite level, and whether or not it was an Olympic year.
The study shows that the average age of participation of athletes in the athletics specialties of the Olympics remains almost constant over time in the last three decades. In practice, the most significant performances and therefore participation in the games are obtained around 27 years old. The analysis of the two researchers also revealed that the average peak age for these athletes is 27 years. Once this threshold is passed, always based on mathematical calculations, there would be only a 44% chance that the peak moment of an athlete’s career has yet to arrive. And the further you go, the more this number tends to decrease.
Tailor-made forecasts
Attention. As always happens when talking about statistics, it is always necessary to consider that There are variations from the average. And we must not forget that we are faced with an exclusively theoretical analysis, based on numbers, which cannot take into account individual variability. But it remains an irrefutable fact, which goes beyond age. By “building” the preparation based on the rhythm of the Olympic Games, we can try to ensure that athletes overcome biases related to their performance curve.
Crow University reports this in a note. “Age is not the only factor that determines the peak of an athlete,” he explains. “What is really exciting is that we also discovered that knowing it’s an Olympic year It actually helps predict an athlete’s performance.”
In short, we need to consider a list of variables that help predict when an athlete’s peak performance will arrive, to build targeted training plans. Because the Olympic Games come every four years. And the time of the Olympics can meet the runner, jumper or middle-distance runner exactly at the peak of their performance, or perhaps when they start to decline. And this it’s a question of calendar. For the individual, barring accidents and training breaks, game time also counts. Good luck to all our athletes.
