Has COVID-19 influenced the performance of top-class athletes in the ITU World Duathlon and World Aquathlon Championship?

Abstract

Objective: The influence of COVID-pandemic on these sports is not yet clear. The aim of the present study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on performance in the World Duathlon and World Aquathlon Championships focusing on the male and female categories. Methods: The Student's t-test for independent samples comparing sex and distances was used for normal variables, whereas the Mann-Whitney U-test was used for non-normal variables. Results: The analysis of the duathlon revealed significant changes in many studied variables for either sex. Of those, cycling performance had greater values after COVID-19 pandemic for either sex. In this sport, women´s performance decreased less than men´s in second running performance and final performance (p values ˂ 0.01; ˂ 0.000). The aquathlon displayed several significant changes in performance after COVID-19 pandemic. Women showed greater change values in running and final performance (p values 0.180; 0.602). The analysis of relative changes for common variables across the different sports revealed significant differences in all the analyzed variables except for the final performance in women. Conclusions: In overall, aquathlon shows better values of changes than duathlon in second running performance for each sex and when both were included in the analysis (p values ˂ 0.000). These findings validate the necessity of considering each discipline when assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of elite duathlon and aquathlon athletes in the World Championship.