Analysis and performance trends of Serbian runners in the Belgrade marathon in the 2007-2019 period

Abstract

The Belgrade Marathon has been held since 1988 and has the longest tradition in the Western Balkans region. The trend in the number of participants in the Belgrade Marathon showed a significant increase in the 2007-2019 period. In addition to the global increase in the number of participants, a decreasing performance trends in marathon races has been noticed. The aim of this paper was to determine the trends in the performances of participants from Serbia in the Belgrade Marathon in the 2007-2019 period. The general cognitive assumption was that with an increase in the number of participants led to a decline in the average performance in the race. The results on the official website of the Belgrade Marathon were used as a source of data for this non-experimental study. All performances of the marathoners from Serbia (n = 3554) in the period 2007-2019 were analyzed. Linear regression analysis was used to assess the trend of the performances of all marathoners from Serbia, their distribution according to age groups by every 10 years, as well as the performances of the 10 first-ranked athletes in total and in each of the groups. The linear trend model on the sample of all marathoners from Serbia has shown that the performance became significantly worse over the years i.e., by 2:14 minutes per year. The trend of a significant decline in performance, ranging from 1:52 to 3:02 minutes per year, has been observed in all age groups of up to 50 years. The linear trend models obtained on the subsamples of the 10 first-ranked men in each of the analyzed age groups did not exceed the level of statistical significance, except in the group of males aged 50-60, where a significant performance trends improvement by 2:10 minutes a year was determined. The performances of competitors from Serbia at the Belgrade Marathon were declining in the examined period, along with a simultaneous increase in the number of participants in this event. It can be assumed that the average performance is declining due to an increasing number of recreational runners participating in the marathon, while the number of categorized runners is not increasing significantly, which in a way reflects conservatism and unchangeability within athletic long-distance races and marathon running events.