EVALUATING TREND ANALYSIS IN THE PERFORMANCE OF ALMATY MARATHON RUNNERS FROM 2016 TO 2021

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate trends in performance and participation of Almaty Marathon since 2016 to 2021. We analyzed 48 885 runners from different region, including Kazakhstan as individual region, because 46 723 racers were local participants, Asia, Europe and “Other” region in which: North and South America, Australia and African countries were included. For all countries, total involvement grew throughout 5 years since 2016 to 2021. Men performed better results than women across all 5 years. Since 2016 to the year prior to the pandemic in 2019, the quantity of racers increased annually. However, after the outbreak in 2021, there was a noticeable decline for 7392 competitors. 61.89% of all finishers over a five-year period ran the 10 km distance, which attracted the most runners. The Kazakhstan region had the worst performance for the three key distances of 10 km, 21 km, and 42 km. Athletes from Europe and "Other" regions performed best at the "Almaty Marathon," with the greatest results primarily coming from African nations. We found that between 2016 and 2021, there was an average finish time gap between male and female runners of about 20 minutes for all distances except 3 km. Regarding participation patterns, the number of runners climbed from 2016 to 2017, when there were 8323 participants, to 10333 in 2017, a difference of 2010 runners. The "Almaty Marathon" attracted 11347 runners the next year, an increase of 1014 runners, or participants. And the number of competitors increased by 1790 finishers between 2018 and 2019.