Darwinian Selection Discriminates Young Athletes: the Relative Age Effect in Relation to Sporting Performance

Sports Medicine - Open

Johan Jakobsson¹  Christer Malm¹  Glenn Persson¹  A. Lennart Julin² 

[1] Section for Sports Medicine, Department of Community Medicine and Rehabilitation, Umeå University, Gösta Skoglunds väg 3, SE-901 87, Umeå, Sweden;Swedish Athletic Association, 120 30, Heliosgatan 3, Stockholm, Sweden;

关键词: Relative age effect;    Sports;    Participation;    Youth;    Athletes;    Health;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s40798-021-00300-2

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe relative age effect (RAE) is a worldwide phenomenon, allowing sport participation and elite selection to be based on birthdate distribution. Negative consequences include both a narrow, non-optimal elite selection and negative health effects on entire populations. This study investigated the RAE and athletic performance in multiple individual sports in Sweden.MethodsBirthdates of athletes born between the years 1922 and 2015 were collected across 4-month periods (tertiles: T1, T2, T3) from cross-country skiing (N = 136,387), orienteering (N = 41,164), athletics (N = 14,503), alpine skiing (N = 508), E-sports (N = 47,030), and chess (N = 4889). In total, data from 244,560 athletes (women: N = 79,807, men: N = 164,753) was compared to the complete parent population of 5,390,954 births in Sweden during the same years. Chi-squared statistics compared parent and cohort distributions stratified by sport, sex, and age.ResultsA significantly skewed distribution of birthdates was present in all sports, both sexes, and most age groups. The largest RAEs are seen in children where T1 often constitutes 40–50% and T3, 20–25% of the population. In E-sports, an inversed RAE was seen in adults. In most investigated sports, birthdate distribution was correlated to performance in children but not in adults.ConclusionsSkewed birthdate distributions were consistently prevalent in all investigated individual sports in Sweden, both physically demanding and cognitive/skill-based. As sport participation is related to total level of physical activity, both present and future, failing to address the RAE issue at an early age will result not only in a narrow and arbitrary selection for adult elite athletes but also in a negative impact on public health.

【 授权许可】

CC BY