72 Chapter 4 Discussion The present study aimed to investigate the pacing behavior development of swimmers throughout adolescence, explicitly differentiating between the effects of age and experience as well as investigating its relationship to performance level in adulthood. As hypothesized, older male swimmers adopted a more all-out distribution of effort in the 100m event, although this development was not exhibited by female swimmers. In the 200m, male and female swimmers exhibited a more even distribution of effort as they became older. Both race experience and age independently impacted the pacing behavior of adolescent swimmers, providing evidence that experience is not the sole driver of pacing behavior development. Furthermore, adolescent swimmers who in adulthood reached the elite level (100m: male, 200m: male & female) exhibited a pacing behavior more resembling adult swimmers compared to swimmers in the high-competitive group. As hypothesized, the distinction in pacing behavior between swimmers of differing future performance level occurred earlier in female compared to male swimmers. Pacing behavior development in swimming In previous literature, the effect of experience and age has often been used synonymously (Skorski et al., 2014a; Turner et al., 2008; Dormehl & Osborough, 2015). However, this seems to be an oversimplification. In the 100m, the behavior of older male swimmers moves towards a fast first 50m, hereby paralleling the behavior of the elite swimmers in adulthood. This resemblance, however, was not observed when comparing male swimmers based on race experience. It supports the notion that pacing behavior development is driven by other age-related factors (e.g., physical maturation and cognitive development) alongside the increase in experience. Additionally, these findings suggest that race experience in itself may not be sufficient to explain the development of future elite performers. Further evidence for this view is provided by the finding that in the 200m event, age still impacts on pacing behavior in both male and female swimmers, even with a separate variable for race experience included in the model. Moreover, the results show that in line with the hypothesis, the separation between future performance levels occurs at a younger age in females (13 years old) compared to males (16 years old). The earlier onset of pacing behavior development in females which has previously been described in a cross-sectional study (Menting et al., 2019c) is thereby confirmed by the current longitudinal study and is thought to be caused by the earlier onset of physical maturation and cognitive development (Menting et al., 2019c; Menting et al., 2022). Based on previous literature, it was proposed that with experience and age, adolescent athletes adapt their pacing behavior to better fit the task demands (Wiersma et al., 2017; Menting et al., 2020). Indeed, within the present study, there is a difference in the development of pacing behavior in the 100m and the 200m events. In the 100m event, older male swimmers adopt a more all-out pacing behavior, characterized by a relatively faster
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