Master athletes maintain high physical activity levels and have better health than age-matched non-athletes. World records show accelerated declines after age 70 in swimming, long-distance running and sprint performance. However, less is known about age-related performance declines in the general master athlete population and whether decline rates differ between disciplines and genders. We interrogated a dataset including all track and field athletes of North Rhine from 2001 to 2014 to assess age-related changes in performance. 27,088 results of athletes between 11 and 89 years of age in 12 disciplines were analyzed by regression statistics. The analyses showed an accelerated decline beyond the age of 70 in sprint, middle- and long-distance running, while in throwing and jumping disciplines the performance continued a linear decline. Patterns of decline differed between men and women. The steepest declines were observed in javelin throw and 400 m (women), and in pole vault and 800 m (men). In conclusion, performance declines in aging depend more on the specific profile of requirements than previously assumed.

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The sprint performance of master athletes decreases with age, but little is known about possible contributions of changes in sprint kinematics. The aim of this study was to assess the influence of age, sex and sprinting kinematics on sprint performance. To investigate this, in 199 men (30–89 years) and 81 women (33–76 years), bending over, brake, propulsion, leg stiffness and hip flexion angles were assessed during a sprint stride using high-resolution video analyses. Propulsion angle (men 25 ± 4.2, women 23.7 ± 4) was larger and hip flexion angle (men 25.3 ± 7.3, women 28 ± 5.7) was smaller in men than in women (both p < 0.001). Bending over angle ( p = 0.004), brake angle ( p = 0.004) and hip flexion angle ( p < 0.001) increased, whereas propulsion angle ( p < 0.001) and leg stiffness angle ( p = 0.001) decreased with age, irrespective of sex. While performance was mainly determined by age ( R 2 = 0.501, p < 0.001) and sex (adjusted R 2 = 0.642), hip flexion angle (adjusted R 2 = 0.686) and bending over angle (adjusted R 2 = 0.705) contributed also to performance in 60-m sprint. In 200-m sprint, in addition to age and sex, only hip flexion angle (age: R 2 = 0.506; age + sex adjusted: R 2 = 641; age + sex + hip flexion adjusted: R 2 = 0.655) contributed to performance. In conclusion, the kinematics of sprinting differ between sexes and change with age. The aging-related changes of sprinting kinematics have a minor contribution to the aging-related decline in performance.