The aim of the thesis is to research the correlation between performance of biathletes in junior men/women to Absolute men/women categories. The initial question was whether it was possible to predict the performance of athletes as they transition to the next age category. We also examined whether there were statistically significant differences between the sexes in terms of ranking their competitive performance based on selected criteria. We were interested in what countries were the most successful in terms of total medals won for junior and absolute categories for both sexes.
The sample consisted of 797 biathletes (410 men and 387 women), from a total of 31 countries. In order to determine correlations in performance, we only selected the biathletes who had competed in both racing categories, and this condition was met by 175 men and 203 women. The research was very extensive and comprised 24 racing seasons, from 1996/97 to 2019/20. The study included all Biathlon Junior World Championships, Biathlon World Championships, Olympic Games and World Cup Final Standings Total for both sexes.
We found that a considerably larger share of competitors who finished among top 10 in any of the races came from the junior men/women racing category and that many biathletes finished their competitive careers before transitioning to the absolute adult category. In order to establish the correlation between both racing categories, only biathletes with results in both categories were considered. The survey showed that in biathlon there is no statistically relevant correlation in both sexes (men: p = 0,478; women: p = 0,343) with regard to performance results in junior men/women and absolute men/women racing categories. It follows that in biathlon performance results cannot be predicted on the basis of results achieved in one racing category and performance in one racing category cannot be used as a predictor for performance in another racing category for both sexes. We also verified whether there were statistically significant differences between the sexes in terms of ranking their competitive performance based on selected criteria. The sexes did not differ statistically significantly by groups within the category of junior (p = 0.429), nor did they differ statistically significantly by groups within the absolute age category (p = 0.833). We also carried out descriptive statistics of total medals won in both racing categories, which showed that Germany was the top-ranking country in the 24-year study period.
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