At what age does athleticism peak in different sports?

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, the youngest competitor is 11-year-old Chinese skateboarder Zheng Haohao. She's just one year older than the youngest Olympian in history: 10-year-old Greek gymnast Dimitrios Loundras, who won a bronze at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens.

The oldest athlete at the Paris Games is Australian Mary Hanna, 69, who competes in equestrian. She's three years shy of the oldest-ever Olympic athlete, Oscar Swahn of Sweden, who clinched that record at the 1920 Antwerp Games. 

These athletes are outliers. According to a 2021 study by the Arc Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), two-thirds of athletes at the Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021, were in their 20s. Overall, 90% of the competitors were under 30.

This tendency for the Olympics to be dominated by young adults raises a question: At what age does an athlete's performance generally peak? Given that athletic demands vary among Sports, there are likely a range of answers to this question. Live Science spoke with experts to find out more.

Related: Which Olympic sport burns the most calories?

Endurance

At the Tokyo Olympics, 28-year-old Richard Carapaz of Ecuador won the men's Olympic cycling road race, and 27-year-old Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya won the women's marathon.

"From an endurance point of view, you often peak in your mid-to-late 20s and into your 30s," said Sports physiologist Garry Palmer, who runs Sportstest, a Sports performance center in Cannock, England. "One of the key reasons behind this is an athlete's aerobic capacity, which is the maximum amount of oxygen that an individual can use each minute during strenuous exercise."