PERFORMANCE TRAJECTORY RELATED TO AGE, CLASSIFICATION AND SEX IN ELITE KAYAK PARA CANOE ATHLETES

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective Verify the performance trajectory related to age, classification (KL: kayak level; M: male; F: female), and sex of elite kayak Para canoe athletes. Design Retrospective cohort study. Results Race results and athletes' data were retrieved from publicly available online databases for 17 competitions and 102 finals between 2015 and 2022. Race time reduced over the years except for KL3-M class. There was a reduction in the relative difference between KL2-M and KL3-M over the years (r = -0.83, 95%CI = -0.34 to -0.97; p ≤ 0.05). Additionally, no significant differences were found in race times relative differences between KL2-F and KL3-F over the years. Although the correlation between age and performance was only found to be statistically significant in the KL3-F class, the ages of all classes (35.2, 32.6, 29.5, 34.6, 37.6, and 30.6 years for males and females KL1, KL2, and KL3, respectively) were higher than those in Olympic canoeing (27.8 years). Conclusion Race times have improved overall since 2015, but not for the KL3-M class. Nevertheless, due to the stochastic ages of the finalist athletes, it was not possible to determine the age at which peak performance is achieved in all classes. Kayak Para canoe classes should be monitored in the coming years to determine whether interventions are necessary to improve differentiation.