Relative Age Effect and Gender Differentiation Within Sport- A Systematic Review

Abstract

Success in sports depends on several factors. One of those factors is a psychological and physical advantage, or in other words psycho-physical maturity. Relative age effect (RAE) is one of the phenomenons which can give advantages or disadvantages in sports competitions. Because of this particular effect, many children and young people experience unfair competition conditions. The goal of this study was to detect the difference in RAE existence between genders in sports by analyzing research about RAE in sports, published between 2017 and 2021. Accordingly, scientific databases „Google Scholar", „Web of Science" and „Research Gate" were used for extraction of adequate scientific papers (n=16). Analyzed papers cover a total of 25 sports (14 individual and 11 team sports). Results of this research suggest the greatest impact of RAE among young males (<18 years old), RAE occurs in 81,81% of analyzed samples. The male sample is also affected by RAE, with 85,71% of occurrence among the overall male sample, and 42,86% among the sample composed of males only. There is no significant tendency among females only, while RAE occurs among half of the female samples. The majority of RAE-positive female samples belong to individual sports while the majority of male samples belong to absolute bodyweight sports. No significant differences were found between sports and among the sample of Olympic games competitors. Also, it can be stated that RAE depends on many factors and effects, which can be controlled to a greater extent. Future research should focus on the analysis of the existence of RAE between sports, especially boundaries between groups of sports and among Olympic competitors.

No Relative Age Effect Among Brazilian Elite Female Futsal Athletes

“…Our results reinforce these findings in female futsal, but now in the context of one of the most important Brazilian competitions. We believe these results are related to the influence of variables such as sex (Babić, et al, 2022) and competition level (Cobley, et al, 2009) of a sport modality. These are some of the aspects that may influence the intensity of competition in a given sport context, affecting the likelihood of a biased talent selection process that favours RAE (Peña-González, et al, 2021).…”

Anthropometric Variability of European Taekwondo Champions

“…Such attributes are especially effective within the passive frontal tactics, characteristic for female competitors. Ectomorphic component is the most desirable trait among kyorugi competitors, while males also tend toward higher values of mesomorphic component (Babic et al, 2022). Male champions seem to have lean Table IV.…”

“…Further, scientists noticed and observed great, but still growing total height trends of coastal Croats, naming the Croatian coast as the "Coast of giants" (Grasgruber et al, 2019), which could be related to I2a Y-haplogroup frequently found among Dinaroids, who primarily populate coastal Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro (Rootsi et al, 2004;Pericic et al, 2005;Battaglia et al, 2009). There is surely a certain correlation between body linearity and success in Olympic taekwondo (Kazemi et al, 2009;Babic et al, 2022). Other scientists however did not find any significant evidence (Wheeler et al, 2012), so there is still an open question: Do specific phenotype affects success in taekwondo?…”

The prevalence of Constituent Year effect in Youth Olympic Games: implications for talent identification and development in basketball

“…Talent identification systems often confuse maturation for talent 6 . The processes of initiation, identification, and selection are crucial yet risky, and if not conducted correctly, can lead to talent dispersion 7 .…”