126 Chapter 6 Discussion The present study strived to gain a more profound understanding of the distinctions in development between swimmers who are considered to be on track to the senior elite level (referred to as high-performing seniors; 6 males and 10 females) compared to those who are not (referred to as lower-performing seniors; 6 males and 7 females). Retrospectively studying these swimmers, we found that high-performing seniors (males aged 18-19 and females aged 17-18) outperformed their lower-performing peers on most of the assessed underlying characteristics at late junior age (males aged 17; females aged 16). Furthermore, high-performing seniors were characterized with significantly faster development in season best performances (for both males and females), maximal swimming velocity and turns (males), and SI (females) during the junior-to-senior transition (males aged 16-19; females aged 15-18). Performance Our findings showed that high-performing seniors were already on track to the elite level at age 17 (males) and age 16 (females). At this particular age, it became evident that these swimmers demonstrated significantly faster season best performances compared to their lower-performing peers (very large effect sizes), which aligns with previous research of Post et al. (2020a). Moreover, we found that high-performing seniors showed significantly faster development of swim performance during the junior-to-senior transition. This further amplified their initial advantages over lower-performing peers. While all high-performing seniors were classified as high-performing juniors, it is important to note that none of the lower-performing juniors transitioned to the high-performing senior group. This observation indicates that bridging the performance level gap faced by lowerperforming juniors is exceptionally challenging. Moreover, it suggests that the development of swim performance becomes more stable during the late junior years (males aged 16-17; females aged 15-16), which is in line with previous work of Costa et al. (2011). As such, we state that the importance of performance level increases as swimmers approach their age of peak performance (Allen & Hopkins, 2015), and that a high level of swim performance at late junior age (i.e., being on track), may be required to advance to the senior elite level, which was also observed in other individual sports like cycling (Mostaert et al., 2022; Gallo et al., 2022). Additionally, we have found that not all high-performing juniors ended up as high-performing seniors. This observation highlights that being on track at late junior age does not guarantee the successful continuation to the senior elite level, which aligns with previous studies (Brustio et al., 2021; Barreiros et al., 2014). Furthermore, it underscores the difficulty of sustaining an upward trajectory towards swimming expertise, thereby counteracting the commonly observed plateau in progress that tends to occur during the junior-to-senior transition (Born et al., 2022a).
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