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Purpose: This study aimed to describe the career performance progression of elite early- and later-success international swimmers competing in sprint events (ie, 50 and 100 m). Methods: The career performance trajectories of 6003 swimmers (50.9% females; 58,760 unique records) competing in the 4 swimming strokes were evaluated. Swimmers with early and later success were identified. The authors identified the top 50 all-time swimmers competing in junior career who did not reach the top 50 rankings in their senior career, and vice versa, and successful swimmers in both junior and senior career. Results: Early-success swimmers mainly achieved their peak performance before the age of 20 years and approximately 5–6 years before successful senior swimmers or approximately 3–4 years before successful swimmers both in junior and senior careers. The annual performance improvements of later-success swimmers were higher (about 1%–2%) until the age of 20 to 24 years, whereas early-success swimmers showed a performance stagnation at about 16 to 18 years in females and 19 to 20 years in males. Conclusions: Early-success swimmers who achieved peak performance at a young age were unable to maintain the same level of competitiveness in adulthood as they experienced a plateau in performance from the age of 20 years. The procedure of considering early performances solely for talent identification (and not the current rate of progression) might represent a limited approach for selecting future elite swimmers. Our results indicate that performance progression in the transition toward adult careers might be a strong indicator of performance potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study investigated (1) the transition rate of elite world-class throwers, (2) the age of peak performance in either elite junior and/or elite senior athletes, and (3) if relative age effect (RAE) influences the chance of being considered elite in junior and/or senior category. Methods: The career performance trajectories of 5108 throwers (49.9% females) were extracted from the World Athletics database. The authors identified throwers who had reached the elite level (operationally defined as the World all-time top 50 ranked for each age category) in either junior and/or senior category and calculated the junior-to-senior transition rate. The age of peak performance and the RAE were also investigated. Results: The transition rate at 16 and 18 years of age was 6% and 12% in males and 16% and 24% in females, respectively. Furthermore, elite senior throwers reached their personal best later in life than elite junior throwers. The athletes of both genders considered elite in the junior category showed a large RAE. Interestingly, male athletes who reached the elite level in senior category also showed appreciable RAE. Conclusions: Only a few of the athletes who reach the top 50 in the world at 16 or 18 years of age manage to become elite senior athletes, underlining that success at the beginning of an athletic career does not predict success in the athlete's senior career. Moreover, data suggest that being relatively older may confer a benefit across the whole career of male throwers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To quantify how many of the top 50 under-18 (U18) sprinters in the world managed to become top 50 ranked as adult competitors. The authors also described the career trajectory of athletes ranked in the top 50 during either U18 or senior category. Methods: A total of 4924 male and female athletes competing in sprint races and ranked in the International Association of Athletics Federations (now World Athletics) lists in any of the seasons between the 2000 and 2018 were included in the study. The athletes ranked in the top 50 positions of all-time lists during U18, senior, or both categories were analyzed. Results: Only 17% of the male and 21% of the female top 50 ranked U18 managed to become top 50 ranked senior athletes. The top 50 ranked senior athletes consistently produced yearly larger improvements during late adolescence and early adulthood compared with those who ranked in the top 50 at U18. Furthermore, top 50 ranked senior athletes reached their peak performance later compared with the top 50 ranked only in U18. Conclusions: This study confirms that early success in track and field is not a good predictor of success at senior level in sprinting events. The yearly performance improvements and their tracking provide the most suitable approach to identify athletes more likely to succeed as elite performers in adulthood. The authors hope that the results of this study can provide useful comparative data and reference criteria for talent-identification and -development programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To quantify the junior-to-senior successful transition rate in sprint swimming events in elite European performers.Design: Retrospective analysis of publicly available competition data collected between 2004 and 2019.Methods: The yearly performance of 6631 European swimmers (females = 41.8% of the sample) competing in 50 and 100 m freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly were included in the analysis. The junior-to-senior transition rate was determined as the number of elite junior athletes who maintained their elite status in adulthood. To investigate how the definition of elite may affect the calculation of the transition rate, we operationally defined elite athletes as those ranked in the all-time top 10, 25, 50, and 100 in their category. We also calculated the correlation between junior and senior performances.Results: The average transition rates ranged, depending on the age of reference, from 10 to 26% in males and from 23 to 33% in females. The transition rate for the top 100 junior swimmers was greater than that for the top 10 swimmers. In general, swimmers who swam 50 m showed a slightly lower transition rate compared with those that swam 100 m. Depending on the age of reference, low-to-moderate correlations were observed between junior and senior peak performances.Conclusions: Most elite junior athletes did not maintain the elite level in adulthood. Except for athletes in the last year of the junior category (18 years for males and 17 years for females), junior performances were poorly correlated with senior performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed (a) to estimate the transition rate for top 50 ranked track and field jumpers, (b) to compare the performance progression of top 50 ranked senior jumpers (top50 senior) to those who failed to be top 50 ranked in the senior category despite being top 50 ranked in the under 18 category (only U18), and (c) to verify whether relative age effect may at least partially explain the differences in the two above‐mentioned subgroups. The career performance trajectories of 5981 athletes (2837 females) competing in jump events from 2000 to 2019 were extracted from the World Athletics database. The all‐time top 50 ranked athletes for each age from 16 years to senior category were identified. Performance progression characteristics were compared using linear mixed‐effects model. Only 8% of males and 16% of females top 50 ranked at the age of 16 years managed to be included among the top50 senior. Only U18subgroup made the first appearance in the database (at 15‐16 years) and reached the peak performance (at 20 years) earlier than top50 senior (17‐18 and 26‐27 years, respectively). The relative age effect was largely present in Only U18 but not in top50 senior subgroups. Most of the early‐successful U18 world‐class jumpers did not manage to maintain the same level of competitiveness in adulthood since they experienced a plateau in performance from 20 years of age. Conversely, top 50 ranked senior jumpers continued to produce consistent performance improvement up to 26‐27 years of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]