Is Biobanding the Future of Youth Sport Participation?

Traditionally, sports participation has been based on the chronological age of the individual with year of birth determining participation grouping. However, grouping by chronological age can result in individuals who are nearly a full year different in age competing within the same age group. Moreover, during the pubertal years, age grouping may provide physical (size) advantage to early maturers and disadvantage to late maturers. These advantages/disadvantages could impact talent selection, psychosocial aspects of sport participation, technical and tactical skill development, competitiveness, and injury risk. Biobanding is an alternative method for determining sport participation categorization and uses factors of growth and/or maturation, rather than traditional chronological age, for grouping athletes. Implementation of biobanding in sports may be advantageous to both early and late-maturing athlete development.