Summary:
The somatometric characteristics of athletes have a very essential role in modern sports and are an important field of scientific research. The purpose of this paper is to investigate possible somatometric differences in male athletes of elite level in water polo, handball and tennis. The research sample consists of 20 athletes of A1 level water polo, 20 athletes A1 level handball, and 20 tennis players who participated in open tennis championships in Greece in the 2023-24 season. Body measurements were taken on the athletes before training or competition, using an anthropometric measuring tape, and body mass measurement with a precision electronic scale. According to the study carried out, a significant statistical difference was observed in height (p‹0.001), arm span length (p‹0.001), dominant and non-dominant arm length (p‹0.001), dominant and non-dominant leg length ( p‹0.001), in the arm circumference of dominant and non-dominant, and in palm length of dominant and non-dominant (p‹0.001). In contrast, no significant statistical differences were observed in body mass index (p =0.066) and pelvic circumference (p=0.056). Therefore, it appears that the athletes have a similar body type and similar weight distribution. Larger differences were observed between handball players and water polo and tennis players, where the former had higher values in most measurements. The biggest difference is that the participants in the handball group had a statistically significant greater height compared to those in the water polo (X = 191.65 vs X = 184.35, p<0.001) and tennis (X = 191.65 vs X = 181.7, p <0.001). Between the water polo and tennis players there were no significant statistical differences except for the perimeter of the dominant and non- dominant arm, where the water polo players had a larger dominant and non-dominant arm by
1.65 cm and 2.4 cm, respectively, than the tennis players (32,62 cm VS 30,98 cm and 32,53 cm VS 30,13 cm).
Keywords:
Physiometric characteristics, water polo, handball, tennis
