ArticleJournal of musculoskeletal & neuronal interactions2021
Declining track and field performance trends in recent years in the Austrian best results 1897-2019.
Article in Journal of musculoskeletal & neuronal interactions, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Jumping Performance Development in Junior Single Figure Skating at International Championships and Competitions and Its Implications for Higher Risk of Acute and Overuse Injuries: A Retrospective Observational Study from 2005 to 2020.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2025Article
- The molecular athlete: exercise physiology from mechanisms to medals.Physiological reviews · 2023Review
- The potential impact of advanced footwear technology on the recent evolution of elite sprint performances.PeerJ · 2023Article
- Performance Increases in Pair Skating and Ice Dance at International Championships and Olympic Games.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Figure skating: Increasing numbers of revolutions in jumps at the European and World Championships.PloS one · 2022Article
- Learning from machine learning: prediction of age-related athletic performance decline trajectories.GeroScience · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesPlateauing of world records in sports has been suggested to reflect the limits of human physiology. Possible explanations include reduced doping or declining popularity that may even lead to a decrease in human performance. Such a decrease, however, has not yet been observed. We hypothesized that rather than a performance plateau, performance has recently declined.
methodsFifteen athletic disciplines of the Austrian annual rankings were analyzed by regression statistics and the average best performance of the last 20 years compared to earlier periods.
resultsThe best performances occurred between 1980-1999 and were on average 2.56% (men) and 1.67% (women) better than between 2000-2019. This attenuation was significant in men in 200 m, 800 m, 1500 m, 10 km, long jump, javelin throw (p<0.05), high jump, pole vault, discus throw, shot put and hammer throw (p<0.001); and in women in 400 m, long jump, discus throw (p<0.05) and high jump (p<0.001). The greatest performance declines were observed in the men's shot put (9.11%) and hammer throw (11.44%).
conclusionsThe Austrian track and field annual best results show a performance decline following a peak, instead of a plateau. Future studies should address the causes and whether this also applies to other sports and countries.
Indexed as
Identifiers
34059565PMC8185268W3165373580What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.