Relative Age Effect: A Systematic Discrimination against Biologically Younger Athletes

Abstract

Physical differences associated with birth-date among athletes of the same selection year have been described as the Relative Age Effect (RAE). The aim of this study was to examine whether RAE still exists in soccer and running sport disciplines as well as to evaluate its progress among different gender, age, and sport context and if it has an effect on performance. Using official archives of the international sports' associations (World Athletics-UEFA), birthdates and performance were collected for 7,226 athletes (4,033 males; 3,198 females) who participated in soccer and running events. A chi-square test was used to assess differences between observed and expected birth date distributions. The study showed an over-representation of athletes born in the first quarter of the selection year for both soccer and running events. RAE is more obvious in younger age groups and in sports that require higher explosive speed, strength, power and anaerobic capacity such as soccer and short distance sprints. It was also found that RAE is associated with performance. In conclusion, athletes of younger age groups with greater biological age have a physical advantage in explosive sports (i.e. soccer and short distance running) that probably does not predict their future development.

Participação dos atletas jovens nos campeonatos portugueses de atletismo sénior de pista realizados de 1990 a 2019

“…Esta linha de investigação académica tem merecido grande investimento, com maior expressão nos desportos coletivos, como andebol (Gil et al, 2021;Rubia et al 2020;Tróznai et al, 2021), basquetebol (Brustio et al, 2021;Gil et al, 2021;Kolocicny et al, 2021;Lupo et al, 2019;Tascioglu et al, 2023), futebol (Brustio et al, 2021;Gil et al, 2021;Gioldasis et al, 2021;Gotza;Hoppe, 2021;, hóquei no gelo (Barnsley;Thompson, 1988;Lemoyne et al, 2021Lemoyne et al, , 2023, rugby (Kelly et al, 2021; e voleibol (Brustio et al, 2021;Castro et al, 2022;Lupo et al, 2019;Rubajczyk;Rokita, 2020). No entanto, embora em menor número, a literatura também contempla estudos centrados no efeito da idade relativa em modalidades individuais, como a natação (Bozdech et al, 2022;Nagy et al, 2015), ski alpino (Bjerke et al, 2020;De Larochelambert et al, 2023;Jakobsson et al, 2021), ténis (Gerdin;Hageskog, 2018;Kolonicny et al, 2021;Zhánel et al, 2022), triatlo (Ferriz-Valero et al, 2020;Ortigosa-Marquez et al, 2018;Werneck et al, 2014), e atletismo (Brazo-Sayavera et al, 2016;Kearney et al, 2018).…”

“…Contudo, a participação e desempenho desportivo dos atletas jovens em competições de escalões/categorias com idades cronológicas superior não tem merecido o mesmo investimento académico, destacando-se no atletismo os trabalhos de (i) Hollings et al (2014), com 1479 atletas (feminino, n=696; masculino, n=783) participantes nos World Junior Championships 2008 e 1445 atletas (feminino, n=588; masculino, n=857) participantes nos World Youth Championships 2009; e (ii) Gioldasis et al (2021) com 7226 atletas (feminino, n=3198; masculino, n=4033) inferiores (Sub16 a Sub23) nos Campeonatos de Portugal de atletismo (competição sénior), desde que tenham obtido (no respetivo período de qualificação) as marcas de qualificação apresentadas no regulamento das provas (FPA, 2023), parece pertinente conhecer a probabilidade dos atletas mais novos (<23 anos) terem sucesso numa competição Nacional de atletismo do escalão sénior (≥23 anos).…”