To deal a systematic coaching of taekwondo athletes based on scientific principles, a clear understanding of technical and tactical combat actions is needed. To this scope, providing a match analysis of actual combats can be an important factor in developing specific training programs (Pieter and Heijmans, 2000). However, at the contrary of elite athletes (Kazemi et al., 2010) there is a paucity of studies on youth competitions. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine technical-tactical aspects during official youth taekwondo combats. Methods: Altogether, thirty combats (semifinals: n=20; finals: n=10) of 10 male weight divisions were recorded and analyzed during the 2010 Italian Championship "Cadetti A" (age: 13-14 years). The recording of combats was authorized by the Italian Taekwondo Federation (FITA). All athletes were in the black belt rank (World Taekwondo Federation), had at least 4 years of previous training consisting of four 2 hr sessions week-1. The technical-tactical analysis was applied to investigate the following parameters: a) frequency of occurrence of offensive, defensive and block actions; b) efficacy of actions (i.e. actions resulted in points). An ANOVA for repeated measure was used to test for differences in type of actions (i.e, offensive, defensive and block) in relation to combat outcome (i.e., winner vs loser). A separate ANOVA was used to test differences between winner and non-winner efficacy. Results: Differences (p< 0.001) were found between all the action typologies (offensive: 50.9 ±2.9 %; defensive: 28.4 ±1.8%; block: 20.6 ±1.8%). Post-hoc showed that winner (p=0.004) performed less offensive actions (winner: 42.6 ±4.1%; loser: 59.2 ±4.1%) and more (p=0.010) defensive actions (winner: 33.4 ±2.6; loser: 23.4 ±2.6) with respect to loser. Furthermore winners were more efficacy (24.1 ±2.3%) than losers (8.9 ±2.3%), (p < 0.001). Discussion: The findings of this study showed as one action on two of Cadet competitions was generally performed as offensive. This trend can be argued by the fact that at this age the technical and tactical skills previously acquired, being still in developing phase, make easier to manage an offensive rather than defensive action. This hypothesis can be supported by the profile of winners, which performed less offensive and more defensive actions, compared to the losers. Furthermore, the winners showed a higher efficacy in terms of technical and tactical skills.
© Copyright 2012 17th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Bruges, 4. -7. July 2012. Veröffentlicht von Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.