Analysis of master swimmers’ sport performance for different freestyle distances

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyze the decline rate of master swimmers’ world records compared to absolute world records, and sport performance decrease for both genders and different age groups (25 to 99 years old) in 50, 400 and 1500 meters freestyle swimming. The best performance for each distance and age group was collected from the official International Swimming Federation (FINA) website (www.fina.org). Group comparisons were made using One-Way ANOVAs followed by Dunett’s post hoc test, with significance level set at p≤0.05. The decline rate of world records was greater in the 1500m distance in relation to the other distances analyzed for almost all age groups and both male and female swimmers.  In addition, women showed a higher world record decline rate than men did for all race distances and almost all age groups. Both decline rate and sport performance decrease in the 1500 meters freestyle swimming seem to be more influenced by physiological changes derived from aging compared to the other race distances analyzed.