PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS BETWEEN CLASSES OF SWIMMING IN SCHOOL PARALYMPIC GAMES

Abstract

Adapted sport was born with the intention for physical rehabilitation, psychological and social for disabled people. These factors are important for encouraging the promotion of sports for children and adolescents with disability, as occurs in the School Paralympics Games, which besides improve the sport practice also promotes the possibility of talent detection. Specifically, there are 14 functional classes in Para swimming (S1-S14), including physical and motor, visual and intellectual disabilities, the classification comes from the need to make the competition fair and more equal. The performance in this competition can be used for scholarship awards, selective for training, and prediction of Paralympic potential. Thus, the present study aimed to compare the performance between classes of Para Swimming in the 2018 School Paralympic Games, Adult Brazilian Competition and World Record, according to age and gender. For this, it was to use the results of the 50m freestyle male and female, and age categories (A and B), adult Brazilian champion and World Record. The regression analysis between classes and performance was significant (p<0.05) in all categories, the value of r² ​was ​below 0.7 only for female adults and male category A. Therefore, performance improvement is highly explained by the increase in functional class. Performance in the lower classes (S1-S3) was much lower than expected and in some categories these classes are missing. On the other hand, male performance from 15 to 17 years old is very close to adult in the upper classes, that signals a positive perspective for the sport.

Received on: 2022/06/27

Reformulated on: 2022/09/03

Accepted: 2022/09/05