Anthropometric Characteristics of Elite Male Rugby Players at The Rio and Tokyo Summer Olympic Games: A systematic review

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume VI, Issue IV, April 2022 | ISSN 2454–6186

Anthropometric Characteristics of Elite Male Rugby Players at The Rio and Tokyo Summer Olympic Games: A systematic review

Michael D. Otieno¹, Nicholas K. Bailasha¹, Elijah G. Rintaugu^2
11Department of Physical Education and Sport, University of Nairobi, Kenya
P.O Box 30197, Nairobi, Kenya
²Department of Recreation and Sport Management, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya
P.O Box 43844. Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract: This study reviewed the anthropometric characteristics of age, height and mass of elite male rugby players at the Rio and Tokyo summer Olympic games. A total of 149 rugby players who participated in the Rio Olympic games and 156 players who participated in the Tokyo Olympic games were profiled. Both games had 12 participating teams with each team consisting of either 12 or 13 players as per World Rugby requirements. Data was collected from team profiles that contained the ages, height and mass of all the players (Wikipedia, 2021). The means and standard deviations were subsequently calculated and Pearson’s correlation used to determine the relationship between the final performances and age, height and mass respectively. Findings showed no significant correlation between performance and age, height and mass at both Rio and Tokyo except for performance and age at the Tokyo Olympics. The findings suggested that the following anthropometric characteristic were dominant: ages between 21and 29; height between 1.80m and 1.90m and mass between 91kg and 100kg.

Key words: Performance, Age, Height, Mass, Profile

I.INTRODUCTION

Rugby is a high-intensity sport, intermittent in nature, that combines a variety of physical abilities including aerobic power, speed, agility and muscular strength (Pasin, Caroli, Cas, Volpi, Galli & Passeri,2017). Rugby sevens at the Summer Olympics was played for the first time at the 2016 Summer Olympics with both men’s and women’s contests. Rugby sevens was added to the Olympics following the decision of the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen in October 2009. The champions for the inaugural rugby men sevens tournament in 2016 in Rio were Fiji. The second Olympic men’s rugby sevens tournament was held in Tokyo in 2021 at the Tokyo stadium. The tournament was won by the defending champions Fiji.
Anthropometric characteristics such as height and mass, have previously been advocated as key discriminators of playing level within rugby (Brazier et al. 2018). It has also been reported that there is likelihood for height and mass in rugby players to be greater with higher levels of competition (Barr et al, 2014) According to Stoop et al (2018), since 1995 when Rugby union became professional, the amount of physical contact during match play has increased. Consequently,

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