european college of sport science

PP-TT08 Training and Testing 8
ANTHROPOMETRIC CHARACTERISTICS AND BASIC MOTOR ABILITIES DIFFERENTIATING YOUNG FEMALE SPRINTERS
FROM THE GIRLS IN THE GENERAL POPULATION
RAKOVAC, M., BABIC, V.
UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB, FACULTY OF KINESIOLOGY
Introduction: Timely selection of talented children and early sports specialization are indispensable for achievement of top sports results.
Identifying anthropometric and basic motor characteristics of sufficient predictive value to be used in selection of athletes most likely to
succeed is necessary within the sports talent identification process.
Based upon a large-scale testing of the girls aged 11 to 13 years in the city of Zagreb, in which the girls most gifted for athletic training
were identified and selected according to the results of the 60m run test, the aim of this study was to determine the differences in anthropometric
characteristics and basic motor abilities between the talented girls and non-selected girls.
Methods
The study sample was drawn from the population of 8184 girls aged 11 to 13 years, all pupils of the 5th and 6th grades of elementary
schools in Zagreb, which were previously tested by means of the 60m run test in order to identify and select the ones most gifted for
athletic (sprint) disciplines.
Our final sample consisted of 189 girls, divided in two groups: selected/talented girls (N=85) and randomly picked non-selected girls
(N=104). Six anthropometric measures (body height, body weight, leg length, shoulder width, upper arm circumference in relaxed position,
upper arm skinfold) were taken, and 8 basic motor ability tests (agility, polygon backward, hand tapping, standing long jump, medicine
ball throw, flexibility, 60’ sit ups, bent arm hang) were performed.
Discriminant analysis was carried out to determine the differences in the measured variables between the two groups.
Results: The differences between the two groups were statistically significant (p