The Relative Age Effect on Young Athletes of Para-Athletics: Birth quartile analysis and performance in individual athletic events
Abstract
The Relative Age Effect (RAE) is a phenomenon characterized by a significant over-representation of athletes born in the first months of the competitive year in the same age category that has been observed in athletics juvenile categories. However, there is a lack of research to investigate this phenomenon and its relationship with para-sport, and it is not clear whether this effect is present in young para-athletes. Thus, the present study aims to examine the existence of RAE in young para-athletics athletes (U16, U18, and U20 categories) and the performance in individual athletic events according to the birth quartile (Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4). Birth dates were collected from 700 young male athletes from para-sport who participated in individual athletic events between 2018 and 2019 in the U16, U18, and U20 categories. In summary, unequal distribution of birth dates per quartile was observed where a greater number of young para-athletes was born in the Q1 of the year for U16 (χ²3 = 18.785; p = .0003; Phi effect = .45), U18 (χ²3 = 6.846; p = .05; Phi effect = .17), and U20 (χ²3 = 10.156; p = .017; Phi effect = .17). However when we compared the performance of the athletes by event (track and field events) and separately by quartile, no significant difference was found (p > .05). In conclusion, our study evidenced the influential role of relative age in track and field para-athletes, but it seems that this phenomenon is not related to performance in track and field events.
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