In the quest to understand the pinnacle of human athletic performance, researchers at the University of Waterloo have delved into decades of Olympic data, uncovering a surprising trend among the world’s top track and field athletes.
The study, published in the July 2024 issue of the Royal Statistical Society’s Significance Journal, found the median peak age for Olympic track and field athletes was around 27, regardless of gender.
“We found that most athletes are participating in the Olympics at around the age of 27, and coincidentally, the peak age of these athletes when they reached their time, whether or not it happens at the Olympics, is also 27,” said David Awosoga, the study lead author and a data scientist student at the University of Waterloo.
“So a peak of an athlete is their best performance and the age at which they achieve it,” he told Global News.
Track and field in the Olympics encompasses a variety of athletic events including sprints, long-distance running, hurdles, relays and various jumping and throwing events.
And according to the study, after years of rigorous training, track and field athletes may peak around the age of 27, only to see their performance levels gradually decline afterward, the study found.
This may be because of the physical toll elite athletes face, explained Dr. Paddy McCluskey, the team physician for Athletics Canada.
Although exercising and playing sports are healthy, elite athletes (like Olympians) may face long-term injuries due to the demands of high-level competition, McCluskey said.
“The demands of being an elite athlete aren’t as good for you long-term. The elite athletes are more likely to push through pain or injuries that others might not,” he said.
Since the Olympics occur every four years, the study’s authors pointed out that the opportunity to time your athletic debut is limited. They sought to determine the optimal age for reaching this peak before the injuries catch up.
To find the prime age, the researchers analyzed annual career performance data for every track and field athlete who competed in an individual event at the Olympics from the 1996 Games in Atlanta to Tokyo 2020.
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They looked at five factors: gender, nationality, event type, the length of time the athlete had been training at an elite level and whether it was an Olympic year.
When they crunched the numbers, the researchers discovered that the average age of participation for both genders over the past three decades was pretty consistent — a little under 27 years old.
“The lone notable exception to this trend was Tokyo 2020, where the mean age of 27.6 years old is readily explained away by the year’s delay to the Games due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the study said.
After the age of 27, there is only a 44-per cent probability that an athlete’s peak is still ahead of them, and this number drops every subsequent year, the study found.
“We found that most athletes, over 70 per cent of Olympic track and field athletes only attend one Olympic Games historically,” Awosoga said.
“And so that window is looking like less than four years on average for an athlete in general to make an Olympic Games. And so the prime is this time interval of how long the best performances in your life are achievable. And the peak is the age when you get your single best performance in your event discipline.”
And looking back, some big Canadian names hold true to the trend.
Donovan Bailey was 28 when he set a personal best and won gold in the 100-metre race at the Olympics in Atlanta. Brianne Theisen-Eaton was 26 when she peaked in the heptathlon competition at the annual Hypo-Meeting in 2015. And Andre Degrasse was also 26 when he got his bronze and personal best in the 100-metre race in Tokyo.
To understand why 27 stands out as the median age for peak performance among Olympic track and field athletes, Awosoga said he can only speculate on the underlying reasons.
“Genetics could play a role, how much the country invests into the training regimes, the types of living conditions and quality of life could make a role. Also, the event category that an athlete is in also plays a role,” he said.
For example, the researchers examined how the event category could predict an athlete’s peak age. They found that some event categories, such as road racing, were much easier to predict, with a clear trend of athletes peaking later in life.
However, jumps and throws were much more difficult to predict.
“We speculate that for throws in particular, the peak age of a thrower is hardest to predict because they had the longest careers on average out of any event discipline. And so there’s a lot more variability there,” he said.
Despite the median age being 27, the study notes there are outliers to these findings.
One example is Kim Collins, a track and field sprinter and five-time Olympian. In 2003, he became the World Champion in the 100-metre race at the age of 26. Remarkably, in 2016, he achieved another personal best at the age of 40.
“Collins was the first one that we saw as, ‘wow, that’s an athlete who had a peak nearly 12 years after it’s predicted. So that was really, really cool to see’,” Awosoga said.
The age differences can also be seen with Canadian athletes currently at the Paris Olympics, McCluskey said.
“On our team, we’ve got athletes that are under 20, and athletes that are over 40. There are a few athletes that are on their fourth Olympic team, and there are 30 athletes or so that are on their first Olympic team. So we’ve got a big range of experience and new athletes here,” he said.
“Twenty-seven is in the middle, but it is a range. People’s performance trajectory is really individual and hard to predict.”