The Role of Nationality in Ultra-Endurance Sports: The Paradigm of Cross-Country Skiing and Long-Distance Running

Knechtle, Beat; Rosemann, Thomas; Nikolaidis, Pantelis Theodoros

doi:10.3390/ijerph17072543

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Ironman ® ‘70.3’ refers to the total distance in miles (113.0 km) of the race, consisting of a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride, and a 13.1 mile run. Among different research topics involving endurance athletes, the interest in understanding the environmental characteristics related to the place of competition and country of origin of the athletes has increased over the last few years [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regarding the country of origin of long-distance triathletes, it has been reported that most finishers, as well as the fastest athletes competing in ‘Ironman ® Hawaii’, originated from the United States of America [ 7 ]. Although the previous literature has showed the dominance of certain nations in specific sports disciplines [ 4 , 6 , 8 , 9 ], little evidence is available regarding the place of competition or if these characteristics are performance-related. As the most popular long-distance triathlon in the world, athletes travel hundreds of miles to compete in Ironman ® 70.3 events, with many travelling thousands of miles to compete at remote locations and achieve personal goals or to earn a spot in the World Championship.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Machine Learning Approach to Finding the Fastest Race Course for Professional Athletes Competing in Ironman® 70.3 Races between 2004 and 2020

Thuany

Valero²,

Villiger

et al. 2023

IJERPH

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Our purpose was to find the fastest race courses for elite Ironman® 70.3 athletes, using machine learning (ML) algorithms. We collected the data of all professional triathletes competing between 2004 and 2020 in Ironman 70.3 races held worldwide. A sample of 16,611 professional athletes originating from 97 different countries and competing in 163 different races was thus obtained. Four different ML regression models were built, with gender, country of origin, and event location considered as independent variables to predict the final race time. For all the models, gender was the most important variable in predicting finish times. Attending to the single decision tree model, the fastest race times in the Ironman® 70.3 World Championship of around ~4 h 03 min would be achieved by men from Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Switzerland, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, and New Zealand. Considering the World Championship is the target event for most professional athletes, it is expected that training is planned so that they attain their best performance in this event.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Machine Learning Approach to Finding the Fastest Race Course for Professional Athletes Competing in Ironman® 70.3 Races between 2004 and 2020

Thuany

Valero²,

Villiger

et al. 2023

IJERPH

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“…It is an interesting phenomenon that athletes originating from a specific region or country are dominating certain sports disciplines [ 1 ]. In running, for example, athletes originating from Jamaica have historically dominated in sprint events (100 m, 200 m and 400 m) [ 2 ], whereas athletes from East Africa (i.e., Ethiopia and Kenya) are some of the fastest runners over middle distance [ 3 ] and the marathon distance [ 4 , 5 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Italians Are the Fastest 3000 m Open-Water Master Swimmers in the World

Seffrin

Lira

Vancini

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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Background: It is well known that athletes originating from a specific region or country can master specific sports disciplines (e.g., East-African runners in long-distance running). In addition, physical and athletic performance are the result of an interaction between genetic, environmental and epigenetic factors. However, little is known about on what determines sports success and performance for long-distance master swimmers such as origin. The aim of the study was to investigate the participation and performance trends of elite master open-water swimmers competing in the World Championships (WC) in 3000 m open-water swimming between 1986 and 2019. Methods: A total of 9247 valid participants were analyzed using generalized linear models (GLMs) with a gamma probability distribution and log link function. Resultsː Most of the starters were from Italy (1646 participations), followed by the United States of America (USA) (1128 participations) and Germany (959 participations). Swimmers from Italy were significantly faster than swimmers from Canada, Germany, USA, Great Britain and also from all other countries grouped (p < 0.005). The age group from 35–39 years old was significantly faster than athletes from age groups of 25–29 years old, 30–34 years old, 40–44 years old, 45–49 years old and 50–54 years old (p < 0.005). The percentage of local athletes in WC was 36% and varied from 36% (Italy, 2004) to 43 % (Germany), 53% (Italy, 2012) and up to 68 % (USA, 1992). Conclusions: Swimmers from Italy were the faster and the most numerous starters during this period of 27 years and 15 editions all over the world in 3000 m master open-water swimming.

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