Developmental Trend of Talented Pupils' Performance in Orienteering - Longitudinal Research 1997-2020 in the East Bohemia Region of the Czech Republic

The paper presents the findings of a longitudinal testing of talented youth in orienteering in the Czech Republic. Young talented orienteers participate in the testing of motor skills by standardized tests. The results and conclusions of the 3 km and 5 km cross-country running measurements (according to age category) point to a regressive state of endurance abilities in young athletes between 1997 and 2020, describe possible reasons and suggest possible remedies. A total of 300 girls and 445 boys aged 12-14 years participated in the research investigation in the East Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic, who are divided into performance categories HD12 and HD14 in the context of organised Czech orienteering competition. The aim of the evaluation of the longitudinal testing was to determine the trends in performance in endurance cross-country running as a key performance parameter of talented orienteering athletes over the period 1997 to 2020. The resulting data indicate that performance in all the studied categories in the given field test has a consistently decreasing trend. The results are also related to the conclusions of foreign and domestic observations of the state of motor fitness of children and youth of the corresponding period and indicate that the level of aerobic ability of young talented runners generally follows the current state of the level of endurance ability found in the national testing of school youth under the auspices of the Czech School Inspectorate (CSI, 2023), and thus the alarming society-wide situation in the field of motor fitness of children and youth in the Czech Republic.