105 MODELLING COMPETITION PERIODIZATION DURING THE 105 - 110 MODELLING COMPETITION PERIODIZATION DURING THE OLYMPIC YEAR IN THE DISCIPLINE 110 M HURDLES (MEN) Grigor Gutev National Sports Academy “Vassil Levski”, Sofa, Bulgaria ABSTRACT Competition periodization in contemporary sports is a difcult task composed of basic rules of training periodization, adaptation, and a busy competition calendar. Infuence on the process has many outer factors. Establishing the com- petition calendar in the year of the main competition (Olympic Games) and secondary ones is a great difculty. Tese difculties are compounded by aggravating factors such as a fading global pandemic and travel difculties. In addition, participation in commercial tournaments is another major part of the competition calendar. Te main aim of the following study is to analyze and model the competition periodization of elite 110 m hurdles during the Olympic year (2021). Respondents are all participants in the Olympic tournament in the chosen discipline – in total, 39 athletes. We found diferent tactics regarding participation in competitions during the Olympic year. Also, we found a diferent pattern of sports result utilization before a major competition. All fnalists do not take part in the competition 20 days before the heats of the Olympic games. Some athletes participate in 60 m hurdles discipline just to check their sports form, others search for top performance in indoor competitions. Te number of race days varies between 10 and 21 an (average of 16) for the fnalists. Afer participating in the Olympic games, most of the athletes participated in a few commercial tournaments and no later than the middle of September, they fnished race season. Based on the results, we can improve the training process and competition planning based on the experience of world- class hurdlers. We must consider that sometimes participation in the competition is canceled due to other factors such as injuries or travel problems. Also, we propose annual competition models based on elite hurdler performance during the Olympic year. Keywords: competition, periodization, 110 m hurdles, men, Olympic games INTRODUCTION Athletics has a great variety of disciplines divid- ed into groups. The running event group is one of the most spectacular and difficult (Doherty, Kernan, 2017). There flashes the hurdle running event with its technical complexity and demands on human abilities as speed and strength com- bined with flexibility and coordination during the hurdle clearance. Interest for us is the discipline 110 m hurdles for men because it is the frst discipline from the hur- dle events in history (Quercetani, 2009). Also, it is one of the most studied events regarding hurdle running technique and some aspects of training (Gutev, Slavchev, 2011). Competition periodization in contemporary sports is a difcult task composed of basic rules of sports training periodization, adaptation, and a busy com- petition calendar (Dimova, 2020). Infuence on the process has many outer factors such as travel plans, athletic managers, and their ability to fnd competi- tions, health status, etc. But afer a deep analysis of methodical literature, we could not fnd detailed information regarding modeling competition periodization for the stud- ied discipline during the Olympic year. (Diankov, Marinova, 2022) METHODS Te main aim of the following study is to analyze and model the competition periodization of elite 110 m hurdles during the Olympic year (2021). To achieve the aim, the following tasks were per- formed: 1. Collecting information for respondents’ par- ticipation in ofcial competitions during the Olympic 2021 from World Athletics (WA, 2022) ofcial website. 2. Statistical analysis applying frequency and de- scriptive analysis. 3. Expert analysis of gathered data. Respondents are 39 hurdlers participating in the Olympic games tournament in Tokyo (Japan) in 2021. We analyzed the participation of all athletes in the Olympic games’ tournament in the 110 m hurdle running during the whole of 2021. Interest for us is the competition days when running 60 m hur- DOI: 10.37393/ICASS2022/18