No Trends in the Age of Peak Performance among the Best Half-Marathoners and Marathoners in the World between 1997-2020 We examined the potential trend in the age of the highest performance at Elite endurance athletes by gender, continent of national citizenship of athletes and rank. Since performance is a multifactorial feature, this information can be used to control long-term training and planning strategies in connection with the selection process of athletes.Information from 1,852 Professional Aports classified between 1997 and 2020 as top 20 performance of each year at marathon and half marathon events have been considered.The variance analysis was calculated to test age differences between gender, continent and rank. A significant difference between the middle age groups was observed.For both sexes, half marathon runners were disciples than marathon runners (men’s half marathon 25.6 ± 3.6 years compared to men Marathon 28.0 ± 3.9 years; Women’s Half Marathon 27.5 ± 4.4 years against women Marathon 28.4 ± 4.1 years).Female half-marathon runners showed the highest average age (31.1 ± 4.8 years) in 2004 compared to the same age in 1997, 2001, 2018 and 2019. Among the male half marathon runners, those in 1999 compared to 2011, 2018 and 2019 showed the highest average age. Differences between the continents of national citizenship of the athletes were observed.Asian runners had the lowest average age (26.5 ± 3.7 years), while their European competitors had the highest age (31.1 ± 3.9 years). No significant interaction between gender and rank was verified.Differences were observed between the sexes for categories 4. to 10. Positions and 11th to 20th positions.
In the last two decades, at endurance athletes of both sexes, no clear trend in the changes in the age of peak performance was observed, but in general, female half marathon runners tend to be significantly older than their male peers. The whole work can be found under https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33922718/