Decrease in performance at the Ironman with increasing age
The age-related performance decline in Ironman triathlon starts earlier in swimming than in cycling and running So far, the Ironman Triathlen has been able to keep their performance up to the age of about 50 years quite constant. This assumption was based on a study in which the top 10 were examined in age groups of 5 years.A problem with such selection on the topathets per age group is the fact that the large amount of athletes per class is not considered.Even if only a large competition such as IRONMAN HAWAII is analyzed, the huge pile of hobby sports people is properly lost. Therefore, we have analyzed all competitions from 2002 to 2015 and came to more than 400,000 finishers at 253 different competitions.It turned now that the age-related drop in the performance of the women in swimming in the category 25-29 started, while cycling and at 30-34 years. For men, there was the same result in swimming while for cycling and running the performance drop only at 35-39 years. From a practical point of view, triathlets should have changed in the women before 30 and men before 35 on the Ironman route to achieve a quick time, after this age it should be over. All numbers and the whole evaluation can be found under https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28225523/
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