Table 2.

Performance decline rates in %/year normalized to age 35. It should be noted that the polynomial regression fit the data better than linear data, as shown in Online Resources 2 and 3. Performance decline rates are shown for before and after 70 years, as the rate of performance decline is known to accelerate around age 70 after staying relatively constant before that age [1, 2, 17]

	All athletes with 10 results or more in the data set								Only one result in data set
	All athletes (35 until oldest)		35–69 years		70 years until oldest		Increase in older group divided by younger group		All athletes (35 until oldest)		Slope CS/slope LN
	Men	Women	Men	Women	Men	Women	Men	Women	Men	Women	Men	Women
100 m	0.66	0.84	0.65	0.71	0.72	1.12	1.11	1.58	0.91	0.66	1.38	0.78
200 m	0.82	1.03	0.75	0.78	0.94	1.54	1.25	1.97	0.97	0.98	1.19	0.95
400 m	1.36	0.92	0.86	0.67	2.36	1.81	2.75	2.72	1.02	0.73	0.75	0.80
800 m	0.79	0.99	0.71	0.96	0.98	1.28	1.37	1.34	1.01	0.85	1.29	0.86
1000 m	0.85a	n/a	0.88a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	0.94	n/a	n/a	n/a
1500 m	n/a	0.82	n/a	0.71	n/a	1.02	n/a	1.43	n/a	0.87	n/a	1.06
3000 m	0.78	0.63	0.73	0.63	0.99	n/a	1.36	n/a	1.02	0.66	1.30	1.05
5000 m	0.82	n/a	0.84	n/a	0.72	n/a	0.86	n/a	0.84	n/a	1.02	n/a
10 k	0.75	0.84	0.69	0.84	0.95	1.56	1.37	1.85	0.77	0.63	1.03	0.74
High jump	0.88	0.73	0.88	0.42	1.12	1.53	1.27	3.62	0.91	0.84	1.03	1.14
Long jump	1.14	1.13	1.07	1.18	1.57	1.75	1.46	1.48	1.25	1.28	1.10	1.13
Triple jump	1.11	n/a	0.75	n/a	3.58	n/a	4.76	n/a	1.20	n/a	1.08	n/a
Pole vault	0.98	n/a	1.01	n/a	0.98	n/a	0.97	n/a	1.08	n/a	1.11	n/a
Discus	1.13	1.27	0.79	1.37	1.59	1.15	2.03	0.84	1.09	1.07	0.97	0.84
Shot put	0.95	0.95	0.73	1.19	1.48	0.44	2.02	0.37	0.99	0.91	1.05	0.97
Javelin	1.29	1.29	1.10	1.44	1.67	1.19	1.52	0.82	1.42	1.62	1.10	1.26

^aNormalized to age 40 due to lack of earlier data. These slopes of linear regressions are shown to allow for a comparison of the data to the literature