Relative age effect in masters sports: replication and extension.

摘要

The relative age effect refers to the performance-related advantage of being born early in a cohort or selection year (Helsen, van Winckel, & Williams, 2005). Barnsley, Thompson, and Barnsley (1985) first documented the relative age effect in sport by analyzing the birth dates of professional ice hockey players from Canada. Relative to a registration cut-off date of December 31 for youth hockey, they found that the birth dates of professionals progressively decreased in frequency from January through December. These results were interpreted as evidence that age groupings in competitive sports may favor participants who have the earliest birth dates within a specific age bandwidth. A number of subsequent studies (e.g., Boucher & Mutimer, 1994) replicated these results, showing that, generally, a significantly higher number of world-class athletes are born in the first quarter of the selection year than in the last quarter of the selection year.