Introduction. Some regions of the country and/or countries of the world perform far better than others at certain tasks and activities. Explanations for these regional disparities typically include discussion of cultural or innate differences between groups of people. Charness and Gerchak (1996) considered an alternative hypothesis when they suggested that “large differences in maximal performance can arise solely from differing participation rates in the target activity.” While a relationship between participation and performance has been demonstrated for a measure of intellectual performance, the same relationship has not been documented for athletic performance.

Purpose. The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to describe the underlying distribution of an athletic performance variable and (2) to test the hypothesis that the top athletic performance in a region is a function of the log of the number of participants in that region.

Methods. USA Swimming participation reports were used to determine the number of swimmers in each region of the country. The USA Swimming Performance Database was utilized to collect 50-yard Freestyle performances for 6-19 year old girls and boys from 2005- 2010. The distribution location, scale, skew, and elongation were assessed and MANOVA was utilized to test for differences in the distribution parameters across age, sex, and competition year. Simple linear regression was used to examine the relationship between the top performance and the log of the number of participants in a region.

Results. The distribution of 50-yard Freestyle performances was shown to be positively skewed. Age had a significant effect on all distribution parameters. In addition, there was a sex main effect and an age by sex interaction effect on the distribution location and scale. Simple linear regression indicated that the log of the number of participants in a region explained a significant portion of the variance of the top 50-yard Freestyle performance in that region.

Conclusions. These results suggest that group sizes must be taken into account before conclusions can be made concerning group differences in performance. In addition, the findings have implications for national sport strategic policy. Efforts to improve performance should be focused on maximizing participation and minimizing dropout.