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DOI: 10.5923/j.sports.20160603.09
Abstract The aim of this study was to identify age of peak performance of elite women's soccer players and to analyze the
relationship between average age and national teams performance in London 2012 Olympic Games. Data from all the 256
female soccer players registered in the tournament were collected. From each player were collected the nationality and birth
day which was used to calculate athletes age during the championship. All data were collected at FIFA official website.
Athletes showed an average age of 25,44,4 years. Teams that were not qualified for the quarter-finals were younger, with an
average age of 22,13,3 years. Teams with the best classifications in the championship had the highest average ages (>26
years). These results reinforce the need to prolong womens soccer players career, thought a greater support for the athletes,
allowing their physical, technical and tactical development throughout a long-term training program.
1. Introduction
The womens soccer became an Olympic sport in the 1996
Summer Olympic Games, hosted by Atlanta, USA. Since
then, the number of participant teams has increased by 50%.
Simultaneous to this greater visibility of the sport, the
number of practitioners has improved significantly in the last
two decades, becoming one of the most popular female
sports [1, 2]. According to FIFA Womens Football Survey
[3], there are 30 million participants recorded in 2014, an
increase of 38% from 2000, and 4,8 million female players
registered in soccer associations.
This greater participation resulted in an increasing
attention of the scientific literature to womens soccer [4].
Most of the studies have investigated the sociological and
physiological aspects of the sport and the frequent injuries
suffered by the athletes. Just a few studies have focus on the
relationship between age and elite womens soccer players
performance.
Delorme, Boich and Raspaud [5] and Vincent and
Glamser [6] studied the relative age effect in athletes
performance. Haugen et al. [1], Haugen et al. [2], Mujika
et al. [7], Manson, Brughelli and Harris [8] analyzed the
physiological characteristics of elite female soccer players
across all FIFA age brackets. However, no study until the
moment has investigated the age of peak performance of the
* Corresponding author:
jubarreira2@hotmail.com (Jlia Barreira)
Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/sports
Copyright 2016 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved
2. Methods
2.1. Sample and Procedures
All data were collected at the official website of the
Fdration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).
Data used in this study are public and available online.
There were 12 womens soccer teams participating in
London 2012 Olympic Game: Brazil (BRA), Cameroon
(CAM), Colombia (COL), France (FRA), Great Britain
122
3. Results
In womens soccer tournament in London 2012 Olympic
Games there were 71 goals scored and 26 matches played.
The number of goals scored per team, number of matches
played and ratio of goals per match are shown in Table 1.
Table 1.
Performance Characteristics of the 12 National Teams
Participating in London 2012 Olympic Games
BRA
Mean
SD
Min
Max
BRA
27,6
4,5
16,7
29,4
CAM
22,7*
3,8
21,8
32,3
CAN
27,2
3,1
17,7
29,2
COL
21,9*
3,1
20,6
38,9
FRA
26,5
4,3
22,1
33,7
GBR
26,6
3,5
19,3
33,9
Total Goals
Matches Played
JPN
26
3,3
17,5
28,6
1.5
DPRK
20,7*
2,6
18,3
39,4
NZL
24,7
5,9
18,1
30,9
CAM
0.3
CAN
12
2.0
SAF
23,4*
3,1
21,8
33,2
COL
0.0
SWE
27,1
22,2
37,1
USA
28,2
4,2
16,7
29,4
FRA
11
1.8
GBR
1.3
JPN
1.2
DPRK
0.7
NZL
0.8
SAF
0.3
SWE
1.8
USA
16
2.7
123
124
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Datson, N., Hulton, A., Andersson, H., Lewis, T., Weston, M.,
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soccer: an update. Sports Medicine, 44(9), 1225-1240.
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