ABSTRACT
As sports become more specialized identification and selection of young talent tends to occur in increasingly younger ages (Helsen et al., 2000). In canoeing, although there are studies which describe attributes, whether anthropometric or physiological of elite (Michael et al., 2008) and young kayakers (Alacid et al., 2011) few normative data exist on the optimization of the equipment set-up. According to human morphology in sprint kayaking and the existing studies focusing on adult athletes (Ong et al., 2005), it seems that an incorrect adjustment of the equipment will affect the comfort of the athlete, his ability to execute the technical movement, and consequently his performance (Burke and Pruitt, 2003). Thereby the aim of this study was to describe the anthropometric characteristics of athletes competing at the level of 15 and 16 years old and their relationship with the paddle set-up and performance.
