Abstract
Introduction
The idea that early sport success can be detrimental for long-term sport performance is still under debate. Therefore, the aims of this study were to examine the career trajectories of Italian high and long jumpers to provide a better understanding of performance development in jumping events.
Methods
The official long-jump and high-jump rankings of the Italian Track and Field Federation were collected from the age of 12 to career termination, for both genders from the year 1994 to 2014. Top-level athletes were identified as those with a percentile of their personal best performance between 97 and 100.
Results
The age of entering competitions of top-level athletes was not different than the rest of the athletic population, whereas top-level athletes performed their personal best later than the rest of the athletes. Top-level athletes showed an overall higher rate of improvement in performance from the age of 13 to the age of 18 years when compared to all other individuals. Only 10–25% of the top-level adult athletes were top-level at the age of 16. Around 60% of the top-level young at the age of 16 did not maintain the same level of performance in adulthood. Female high-jump represented an exception from this trend since in this group most top-level young become top-level adult athletes.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that performance before the age of 16 is not a good predictor of adult performance in long and high jump. The annual rate of improvements from 13 to 18 years should be included as a predictor of success rather than performance per se. Coaches should be careful about predicting future success based on performances obtained during youth in jumping events.
Citation: Boccia G, Moisè P, Franceschi A, Trova F, Panero D, La Torre A, et al. (2017) Career Performance Trajectories in Track and Field Jumping Events from Youth to Senior Success: The Importance of Learning and Development. PLoS ONE 12(1):
e0170744.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0170744
Editor: Tiago M. Barbosa, Nanyang Technological University, SINGAPORE
Received: July 18, 2016; Accepted: January 10, 2017; Published: January 27, 2017
Copyright: © 2017 Boccia et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Description
This research analyzes performance trends from youth to adulthood in track and field jumping events.