The impact of rule changes on the competitive activity indices in Greco-Roman wrestling

Abstract

Objective – to reveal the impact of competition rule changes on the indices of athletes’ competitive activity. Methods. A total of 117 final fights of highly qualified athletes were analyzed. The following indices were recorded: the duration of bouts; number of technical actions; real attempts (the number of attempts made); estimated attempts (number of attacks implemented); the effectiveness of technique used in a stance and in “referee’s” position (determined by dividing the number of successful attacks by the number of real attempts to perform reception and multiplied by 100 %); the effectiveness of defence in a stance and in “referee’s” position (this is the division of the number of reflected attacks by the number of real attempts to execute a hold and multiplied by 100 %); the effectiveness of executed holds (scored: 1 point, 2 points, 3 points, 4 points, 5 points). Results. The results obtained allowed to establish that the most performed TAs on the ground are rolling sideways, but they were most successful at OG-2016 (47 % of all TAs) and OG-1996 (41 %). This percentage is explained by the fact that rolling sideways are the most common, and all wrestlers pay great attention to their improvement. At present, attacking actions prevail in the competitive techniques, the bout is conducted constantly at a high pace; techniques are performed after previous preparation when the athlete is confident that the action will be performed; high-class wrestlers tend to execute more technical and tactical actions on the ground than in the stance, and all this significantly reduces the entertainment of the modern Greco-Roman wrestling. Modern studies have shown that the key characteristics of highly skilled wrestlers fitness with an equal amount of tactical and technical actions are their speed-strength capabilities and special endurance. Conclusion. It is established that today there remain significant problems for the specialists of Greco-Roman wrestling in the need to modernize the competition rules in order to improve the performance and entertainment of wrestling bouts. Keywords: technical fitness, Olympic Games, highly skilled wrestlers, competition rules.