2014, Volume 10
Weight categories do not prevent athletes from Relative Age Effect: an analysis of Olympic Games wrestlers
Maicon Rodrigues Albuquerque1, Varley Teoldo da Costa2, Larissa Oliveira Faria1, Mariana Calábria Lopes1, Guilherme Menezes Lage3, Dariusz Sledziewski4, Leszek Antoni Szmuchrowski5, Emerson Franchini6
1Departamento of Physical Education, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, Viçosa, Brazil
2Sport Psychology Laboratory, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
3Departamento of Physical Education, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
4Department of Sport Theory, Academy of Physical Education, Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
5Load Evaluation Laboratory, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
6Departamento of Sports, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Author for correspondence: Maicon Rodrigues Albuquerque; Departamento of Physical Education, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa, Viçosa, Brazil; email: maicon[at]ufv.br
Full text
Abstract
Background and Study Aim: Relative Age Effects (RAE) refer to the effects of age differences among individuals who have been grouped together. This study aimed is knowledge about RAE in Olympic Games wrestlers to analyse its effects on all athletes, styles, and medallists, considering males and females separately.
Material and Methods: The names and birthdates of the Olympic wrestlers were collected from open-access websites. In this study, we analysed male and female competitors separately.
Results: The main results of this investigation were the presence of RAE in all styles, freestyle medallists, and freestyle main medalling countries, only in male athletes.
Conclusions: Thus, in a selected group of wrestlers who had participated at the highest competitive level, RAE were in all styles, only in male athletes. In addition, our data suggest that RAE cannot be eliminate only by weight categories.
Key words: freestyle wrestling, greco-roman athletes, olympic athletes, sport psychology