The interaction between within-year and between-year effects across ages in elite table tennis in international and national contexts – A further exploration of relative age effects in sports

ABSTRACT

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 within-year and between-year effects and their possible interaction in an individual skill/technique based sport: table tennis. Data of male and female elite players across ages (U15, U18, U21, and senior) were collected from the ranking lists in international (world and Europe) and national contexts (France and the Netherlands). A multi-way frequency analysis per subsample revealed (1) no interaction effects; (2) significant within-year and between-year effects for the U15 players in the international context and male French players; (3) a significant within-year effect in the French U18 category; (4) a significant within-year effect in female European U21; and (5) no within-year effects in the senior category. Table tennis seems to be at risk for within-year and between-year effects specifically within the context of high competitive level for younger players (U15, males, and females), but not for interactions between these effects. Future research should reveal the development of the RAEs over time in a longitudinal study, evaluate influencing constraints, and innovative prevention solutions in a more comprehensive way.

KEYWORDS:

• Racquet sports
• relative age effect
• table tennis
• youth

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU), the French Table Tennis Federation (FFTT), and the Netherlands Table Tennis Association (NTTA) for the provision of the data. Special thanks go to Igor Heller, member of the International Table Tennis Federation’s committee for rules, for his expertise in international competition and Samuel Pullinger for his assistance with English writing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The financial support for Liu Meihan was provided by the Overseas Visit Study Program of Shanghai University of Sport [grant number: stfx20170117]