Are performance trajectories associated with relative age in French top 100 youth table tennis players? – A longitudinal approach

Although relative age effects in sports have been studied worldwide, the underlying mechanisms are still under debate. This study adds to the existing knowledge by providing a further exploration of the association between relative age and the performance trajectories over four years in youth players of an individual skill/technique based sport: table tennis. Data of 1000 French male and female youth top 100 players across five ages (U14, U15, U16, U17 and U18) were collected from the ranking lists over a four-year period. A series of latent growth analysis was conducted per subsample and revealed three performance trajectories for male U14, U16 and U17 as well as for female U17 and U18 and four performance trajectories for male U15 and U18 and female U14, U15 and U16. Results of chi-square tests revealed that the players’ birth quartiles were significantly associated with the performance trajectories only for male players U18 with a large effect size (p = 0.01; W = .48). All other male subsample only showed a trend for the male subsamples for those born in the fourth quartile. No relations or trends were found in the female subsamples. Future research in relative age effects should further explore individual characteristics and pathways while using a longitudinal approach in a prospective design and evaluate influencing constraints (and solutions) in a more comprehensive way.