Abstract

The authors examined 13 subjects (9 male and 4 female), usually engaged in a high endurance sport (orienteering). For each athlete VO2max and anaerobic threshold (A.T., absolute value and percentage of VO2max) were measured. Anaerobic threshold was measured on the basis of VE, VO2 and FEO2 data during incremental ergometric test on bicycle ergometer. All the subjects performed also a field test based on maximal races on 800, 1500 and 5000 mts for males, and 600, 1000 and 3000 mts for females. The results obtained show that maximal oxygen consumption scarcely determines the best performances in the test-races considered. On the contrary, it is evident a good statistic correlation between the A.T. (considered as percentage of VO2max) and the maximal velocity obtained in each race. We can conclude that orienteering runners do not show very high values of A.T. (mean 70 ), and that best performances over aerobic-anaerobic races are obtained by subjects showing lower values of A.T. Verf.-Referat