KINEMATICS OF THE DELIVERY PHASE AND RELEASE PARAMETERS OF TOP FEMALE JAVELIN THROWERS

The introduction of the new-rules javelin for female athletes in 1999 was thought to be a cause of increased demand for excellence in the throwing technique and that a greater demand for biomechanical analysis was stressed. The purpose of the study was to investigate the kinematical parameters of the delivery phase and the release parameters of contemporary top female javelin throwers in order to support the above mentioned suggestion. Twenty-six throws performed during competitions by 16 right-handed top athletes (age: 28.5 years plus or minus 4.3; body height: 1.75 m plus or minus 0.05; body mass: 73.8 kg plus or minus 6.3; average plus or minus standard deviation, respectively) were recorded with a digital video camera (sampling frequency: 50fps). The delivery and release phases were examined with a 2D-DLT analysis method. The relationship of the extracted spatio-temporal, kinematical and release parameters with the official throwing distance was examined with a two-tailed Pearson correlation. The results indicated that the official distance (59.22 m plus or minus 4.42) was strongly correlated (r = .909, p .001) with the release velocity (22.9 m/sec plus or minus 1.6) and negatively correlated (r = -.608, p .05) with the knee angle of the right leg at its last touchdown (142.2 degree plus or minus 13.1). The temporal parameters of the delivery phase were significantly (p .05) correlated spatial parameters such as the delivery stride length, the inclination of the torso, the elbow angle of the throwing arm and the knee angle of the braking leg. Emphasis should be given in these parameters to ensure an improvement in female javelin performance. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]