(03) ARE GOLD MEDALLIST PARALYMPIC POWERLIFTERS SIMPLY STRONGER THAN SILVER AND BRONZE MEDALLISTS?

Introduction: Para-powerlifting is a strength sport where athletes have a disability that meets specified criteria, and competition requires these athletes to perform the bench press under specific rules. Para-powerlifting athletes are delineated by 10 weight categories for each sex. There is limited research on high-performing, elite Paralympic powerlifting athletes, particularly with respect to the factors that delineate between them.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate the strength performance of Paralympic powerlifters and the identify if notable strength gaps exist between winners and placeholders.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted using a publicly available database (openpowerlifting.org). Data ranging from June 1984 to September 2021 was extracted and only athletes who placed in the top three at their respective Paralympic games were included. All data pertaining to the athletes age, body weight, body weight category, best lifts, and competition placing were extracted for the final analysis. Following extraction, athletes were categorized as being either a Gold Medallist (GM) or Silver and Bronze Medallist (SBM). Independent samples t-tests were used to determine the significance of the difference observed between the best lift of GM and SBM athletes in each weight category, and Cohen’s d was used to represent the effect size (small=0.2-0.49, medium=0.5-0.79, large >0.8). Ethical approval for this project was granted by the Edith Cowan University Human Research Ethics Committee (approval no. 2021-0237-LATELLA).

Results: Overall, 437 individual entries were included in the final analysis. The group mean of the athletes’ best lifts are shown in Table 1. Female GM’s were significantly stronger than SBM across all categories except the 73kg weight category (p=0.062). Large effect sizes were noted for all female weight categories (d>0.8). In the male categories, only the best lifts performed in the 49kg and +107kg significantly differed between GM and SBM athletes. Small effect sizes were seen within the 54kg (d=0.450), 72kg (d=0.427), 80kg (d=0.472), 88kg (d=0.481), and 107kg (d=0.365) categories. Medium effect sizes were noted in the 59kg (d=0.621), 65kg (d=0.653), and 97kg (d=0.517) weight categories. Large effect sizes were seen in the 49kg (d= .274) and +107kg (d=2.341) weight categories.

Conclusion: The large effect sizes noted across the female weight categories suggest that these GM athletes may simply be stronger than SBM athletes. However, the small to moderate effect sizes noted across many male categories suggests tighter competition for final placings compared to other categories. 

Practical application: This study suggests that the strength gap separating GM and SBM medallists across numerous categories, especially in males, is not insurmountable. Hence, competition strategy and tactics may also play an important role in determining competition outcomes in these categories.

Acknowledgements: None