Abstract

The aims of this study were to test for the presence of a relative age effect among male (n = 119,715) and female (n = 12,823) members of the shooting sports federation, and to determine whether any such effect has an impact on dropout from the sport. For the boys and girls, the results show a uniform distribution of dropout. A relative age effect was not found for the girls, showing that in female shooting sports there is no such effect. For the males, a significant statistical relative age effect was not detected in the 18–20 and 13–14 year categories. However, a relative age effect was found among adults and the 11–12 and under 11 year categories. A significant “inverse” relative age effect was found for the 15–17 year group. Further qualitative research is needed to clarify which factors contribute to this asymmetric distribution of birth dates in French male shooting sports. Verf.-Referat