147 Growing up and reaching for the top: A longitudinal study of talented swimmers 7 Methods Ethical Approval All participants were informed of the study’s procedures prior to their participation and provided their written informed consent to participate. Informed consent was also obtained from parents of participants who were below 16 years old. All procedures used in the study complied with the Helsinki Declaration and were approved by the local research ethics committee. Participants Participants were ninety Dutch talented swimmers (47 males, 14.6±1.0 years; 43 females, 13.2±1.1 years) who were followed throughout the junior years of their swimming career (males aged 12-15; females aged 11-14). All swimmers participated in the National Dutch Junior Championships (“Nederlandse Jeugd & Junioren Kampioenschappen”), and were classified as national-level athletes, corresponding to Tier 3 in the classification system proposed by McKay et al. (2022). Swimmers were specialized in sprint (50-100-m; 32 males and 35 females) or middle-distance (200-400-m; 15 males and 8 females) events. According to the age group regulations of the Royal Dutch Swimming Federation (KNZB), swimmers were classified as early junior (males aged 12-13 years; females aged 11-12 years), mid junior (males aged 14-15 years; females aged 13-14 years) and late junior swimmers (males aged 16-17 years; females aged 15-16 years) based on their calendar age on December 31st of the corresponding season (KNZB, 2022). Swimmers’ average performance level at late junior age corresponded to 597 ± 106 World Aquatics Points for males and 571 ± 86 World Aquatic Points for females. Study design Longitudinal data on swim performance and underlying performance characteristics were collected over three swimming seasons. Performance data (season best times from all long course swim events) were obtained from Swimrankings (Swimrankings, 2022) at the end of each swimming season. Repeated measures of underlying performance characteristics were conducted during four measurement moments during the National Dutch Junior Championships (see Figure 1). For males and females, the median number of measurements was n = 3, taken over a period spanning from 6 to 18 months.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw