okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Saturday, July 17, 2004
Ages of elite orienteers
Runners at the Euro Champs long distance qualifying race by age:
under 20 years old 0 (0%)
21-25 years old 69 (37%)
26-30 years old 75 (40%)
31-35 years old 29 (15%)
36-40 years old 15 (8%)
over 40 years old 0 (0%)
The median age was 27.
I didn't have ages for all of the 225 runners in the qualifying race. I had ages for 188 of them. I don't think the results would change if I had all 225, but you never know.
Last year I also look at the age distribution for riders in the 2003 Tour de France. For the TDF, the distribution is a bit different. The cycling tended to be a bit older (52% between the ages of 26-30 and 32% between the ages of 31 and 35).
If I had to guess, I'd say that the cyclist ages tended to be a bit higher because cycling is a professional sport while orienteering, with a few exceptions, isn't. A world class orienteer is more likely to have to give up serious training and get a full time job at the age that a world class cyclist is pulling down a good salary from a cycling team.
