The Value of Experience in Relation to the Sum of the Degree of Difficulty in the 3m and 10m Diving

Purpose: Athletic performance increases from birth to youth reaching a peak level in early adulthood and declines thereafter, furthermore, the competitive performance may change between athletes in different sports and events. As a general trend for both sexes, the disciplines concerning very specific technical skills involve the youngest athletes, such as for the gymnastics and aquatic disciplines. Thus, the aim of the study was to investigate the value of experiences in terms of ages and the influence of this on both sexes competitive performance in 3m and 10m diving. Methods: Diving competition results from Sydney 2000 to Tokyo 2020 were collected from the FINA official web site. For the female (F) and male (M) medalists (Olympic (OL): F=18, M=18; World Championship (WCH): F=30, M=30; World Cup (WC): F=33, M=33) of each event the sum of the Degrees of Difficulty (DDs) and first the year of competition (3m: F=14.9±2.2 yrs, M=15.3±1.8; 10m: F=14.2±2.1, M=15.4±1.8) were analyzed using the slope of the regression line of the results over time (y). Results: Observing the trend over time of the first year of competition, it seems that in the 3m men are older than women especially in bronze medalist (M: y=-0,1959; F: y=0,0573). Instead, silver medalist women seem to be older than men (F: y=0,157; M: y=0,0254). In 10m all medalists’ women are younger than men (F: 1°y=0,0266; 2°y=0,0469; 3°y=0,0147; M: 1°y=-0,1144; 2°y=-0,0084; 3°y=-0,0829). From the analysis of DDs: in 3m women DDs continuously increased in all medalists (1°y=0,0107; 2°y=0,0478; 3°y=0,0368), the same trend is observed in men’s DDs especially for gold medalists (y=0,0316), while in silver and bronze there aren’t a significant increase (Silver y=0,0017; Bronze y=0,0046). In 10m women’s DDs values decrease with the increasing of the years for all medalists (1°y=-0,1879; 2°y=-0,1727; 3°y=-0,0497); in men especially for gold and silver medalist DDs values increase (1°y=0,4599; 2°y=0,6401) while in bronze DDs decrease over the time (y=- 0,225). Conclusions: The results suggest that age is a fundamental parameter that may influence performance results in both competitions. Furthermore, the experience, due to years of competitions, seems to have a great influence on DD and consequently affects the preparation phase for the competitions. A good knowledge of athletes' career and abilities could provide coaches a guidance on choosing athletes' routine and progression towards their performance goals.