Determinants of performance in athletics: a coache’s perspective

Abstract

Introduction: Assessing sporting potential is an important step in discovering new talent and should use relevant performance predictors, which vary by modality. Objective: investigate the importance attributed by coaches to the determinants of performance in athletics, analyzing differences between the events groups. Methodology: Twelve Brazilian coaches participated (11 men, 83% from Minas Gerais, 75% had high-level experience and 42% from international titles). A questionnaire containing six factors and 51 performance indicators in athletics was applied. The coaches answered the importance attributed to anthropometric, physicomotor, technical, tactical, psychological and socio-environmental factors, on a Likert scale, being 1-nothing important and 5-extremely important. Then, they informed the order of importance of these factors for the performance in athletics, considering from the 1st to the 6th most important. Finally, they evaluated the importance of factors and performance indicators for sprinters, long-distance runners, jumpers, throwers and, track and field combined events. Results and discussion: The order of importance of the performance factors was: 1º) Physicomotor, 2º) Technical, 3º) Psychological, 4º) Anthropometric, 5º) Tactical and 6º) Socio-environmental. The tactical factor was the most important for the long-distance runners and athletes of combined events. Conclusion: In the opinion of the coaches, physicomotor, technical and psichologycal characteristics are, in this order, the main determinant factors of performance in athletics. However, it is necessary to consider the differences between events groups. Each event group shows particular characteristics that result in a specific profile.