The Age in Swimming of Champions in World Championships (1994–2013) and Olympic Games (1992–2012): A Cross-Sectional Data Analysis

• Main Authors: Beat Knechtle, Nicola Luigi Bragazzi, Stefan König, Pantelis Theodoros Nikolaidis, Stefanie Wild, Thomas Rosemann, Christoph Alexander Rüst
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2016-03-01
• Series: Sports
• Subjects: champions; age; performance; sex difference
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4663/4/1/17

(1) Background: We investigated the age of swimming champions in all strokes and race distances in World Championships (1994–2013) and Olympic Games (1992–2012); (2) Methods: Changes in age and swimming performance across calendar years for 412 Olympic and world champions were analysed using linear, non-linear, multi-level regression analyses and MultiLayer Perceptron (MLP); (3) Results: The age of peak swimming performance remained stable in most of all race distances for world champions and in all race distances for Olympic champions. Longer (i.e., 200 m and more) race distances were completed by younger (-20 years old for women and -22 years old for men) champions than shorter (i.e., 50 m and 100 m) race distances (-22 years old for women and -24 years old for men). There was a sex difference in the age of champions of -2 years with a mean age of -21 and -23 years for women and men, respectively. Swimming performance improved in most race distances for world and Olympic champions with a larger trend of increase in Olympic champions; (4) Conclusion: Swimmers at younger ages (<20 years) may benefit from training and competing in longer race distances (i.e., 200 m and longer) before they change to shorter distances (i.e., 50 m and 100 m) when they become older (>22 years).