Results of Croatian preschool children in athletic disciplines at the "Olympic Festival of Kindergartens: I want to be an Olympian".

Introduction: This article presents the Olympic Kindergarten Festival "I Want to Be an Olympian" (Festival) organised by the Croatian Olympic Committee. The concept of the competition is similar to that of the Olympic Games. In parallel with the preparations for the competition, children are taught about the Olympic movement and Olympic values. The Olympic Festival includes athletics competitions in four disciplines adapted to preschool age: 50m sprint (T50m), 4x25m relay (R4x25m), ball throw (BLD) and standing long jump (SDM). Each participant can only take part in one sport or exercise. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to 1. present the quantitative values of preschool children in 4 athletics disciplines 2. determine whether there are significant differences between the participating preschool boys and girls in the 4 athletics disciplines of the festival programme and whether there are significant differences in terms of competition level (city and county). Results: The sample for this study consisted of subsamples of 1625 girls and 1668 boys in the softball long throw, 1659 girls and 1599 boys in the standing long jump, 1492 girls and 1564 boys in the 50 m sprint, and 832 girls' and 804 boys' teams in the 4x25 m relay, attending older kindergarten groups in the Republic of Croatia. Descriptive statistics were compiled for all variables analysed. Differences between the counties and between genders and their mutual interaction were tested using a two-factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) with interaction for all analysed variables. The mean values of the boys were higher (cm)/better (sec.) than those of the girls for all variables. The figures show that there are gender differences in all counties for all observed variables. We find that the effects of the interaction between county and level of competition are statistically significant for all observed variables. Conclusion: After analysing and comparing the results with those of the 2007 Festival on a representative number of participants, we find that there is a decline in motor skills at pre-school age in all observed disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]