Career Performance Trajectories in Track and Field Jumping Events from Youth to Senior Success: The Importance of Learning and Development

• Published in: PloS one 2017-01, Vol.12 (1), p.e0170744-e0170744
• Main Authors: Boccia, Gennaro, Moisè, Paolo, Franceschi, Alberto, Trova, Francesco, Panero, Davide, La Torre, Antonio, Rainoldi, Alberto, Schena, Federico, Cardinale, Marco
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Achievement; Adolescent; Adult; Age; Analysis; Athletes; Athletes - psychology; Athletic Performance - psychology; Biology and Life Sciences; Brain research; Career Choice; Career development; Careers; Children & youth; Evaluation; Exercise; Female; Females; Gender differences; Girls; Humans; Italy; Jumpers; Jumping; Male; Males; Medicine and Health Sciences; People and Places; Performance-based assessment; Physical fitness; Physical Sciences; Puberty; Regression Analysis; Research and Analysis Methods; Science; Skills; Social Sciences; Sports - psychology; Studies; Success; Track & field; Track and Field - psychology; Track and field athletes; Trajectories
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0170744

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. 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. 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. 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.