Relative Age Effects in Male Japanese Professional Athletes: a 25-Year Historical Analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The mechanisms underlying the relative age effect (RAE), a biased distribution of birth dates, in sport events have been investigated for more than two decades. The present study comprised an historical analysis involving the most recent quarter-century (1993-2018) on RAEs among Japanese male professional athletes (soccer, baseball, basketball, and volleyball) to clarify how the RAEs changed over time.

Methods

Birth data were obtained from 7805 Japanese male professional athletes registered in 1993, 2001, 2010, and 2018. The athletes were divided into four groups based on their month of birth: quartiles Q1 (April-June), Q2 (July-September), Q3 (October-December), and Q4 (January-March of the following year). In addition, based on the data in 1993 for soccer and ba

SUBMITTER: Sasano N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7538493 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature