Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Sport results might be influenced by advances in sport science leading to better training, but also by new knowledge of human physiology and endocrinology. Doping and its detection as well as impact of regulations like testosterone limitations for women category eligibility might be reflected in top sport performances.

Objectives: We aimed to retrospectively analyse factors influencing top performances in short, middle, and long-distance running in women.

Methods: We have analysed the number of top performances per year in the world (www.alltime-athletics.com) in women from 1980 to 2022 among 250 all-time outdoor top performances. Disciplines with different physiologic requirements (100 m, 800 m and 5000 m running) were included. We have performed multivariate analysis evaluating impact of time progression, years with Olympic games, implementation of athlete’s biological passport, out-of-competition testing, years without erythropoietin detection, years with tetrahydrogestrinone availability, years with testosterone limitations, year 2020 (onset of COVID-19 pandemic), and COVID era (2021 and 2022).

Results: In multivariate analysis model was significant for 100 m (R² 0.79, P<0.05) with positive influence of tetrahydrogestrinone availability and COVID-19 era, while negative influence of the year 2020. For 800 m model was significant (R² 0.41, P<0.05), with positive influence of Olympic year, and negative influence of testosterone limitations and out-of-competition testing. For 5000 m model was also significant (R² 0.77, 0<0.05) with positive influence of time progression, but negative influence of testosterone limitations and year 2020.

Conclusions: Our results show that testosterone limitations negatively impacted the number of top performances in both middle and long-distance categories. Out-of-competition tests crucial for anabolic detection also negatively influenced results in middle-distance category. The tetrahydrogestrinone, a strong anabolic that escaped detection for several years is important in short distance category. The particular impact of COVID-19 years with irregular antidoping testing suggests that many other factors could directly or indirectly influence top sport performances.