Age is a core concept for achieving high performances. Foremost, age allows gathering experience and acquiring quality in performance. On the other hand, physical decrements may impair performance. Therefore, volleyball teams should balance their roster, mixing experienced, older players with younger players. Our purpose was to analyze the age of women volleyball teams who have participated in the FIVB World Grand Prix, from 2004 to 2011. This competition selects the best twelve national teams in women volleyball in the world (16 in 2011). Data were collected directly from the FIVB online platform (www.fivb.org), including values from a total of 1708 participants across those years. Average age was 24.28±4.21 years, ranging from 23.64±3.41 in 2005 to 24.79±4.33 in 2007. This is an evident evolution of age according to the Olympic cycle. Teams` age decreases in the year immediately following the Olympic Games, progressively increases until the next Olympic Games, and again falls. Teams were further divided into three groups according to their ranking in the competition: 1st to 4th ranked teams, 5th to 8th, and 9th to 12th. Teams ranked 13th to 16th were excluded, since this situation happened only in the 2011 edition of this competition. There are significant differences between the teams according to their ranking (F=5.009, p=0.009). Bonferroni pairwise comparisons revealed that the teams ranked 1st to 4th were older (24.84 years) than the teams ranked 9th to 12th (23.63 years). Overall, World-class women volleyball teams present an average age varying from 23 to 25 years, mixing experienced players with younger, up and coming players. Age fluctuations accompanying the Olympic cycles reveal there is a concern in national teams to renew their roster, which then goes on acquiring experience until the next Olympic Games. Furthermore, the four best-ranked teams in each World Grand Prix are, in average, one year older than the worst four ranked teams. So, ideally, top-level women volleyball teams should present a mixture of experience and youth, but achieving the best four spots implies a trend towards experience. The renovation of teams following the Olympic cycles is evident in this sample.
© Copyright 2012 17th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Bruges, 4. -7. July 2012. Published by Vrije Universiteit Brussel. All rights reserved.