Older recreational cross-country skiers adopt more even pacing strategies than their younger counterparts of similar performance level.

The aim of the present study was to examine the performance× age interaction on pacing in cross-country (XC) skiing. We analyzed all finishers (n = 79,722) who competed in "Vasaloppet" from 2012 to 2017 grouped in performance quartiles according to their race time with Q1 as the fastest and Q4 as the slowest. Women (44.1 ± 10.2%) had larger pace range than men (40.9 ± 11.8%; p < 0.001, η2  = 0.014). The pace range ranged from 29.8 ± 7.1% (Q1) to 49.0 ± 10.1% (Q4; p < 0.001, η2  = 0.179). In women and men, smaller differences in pace range among age groups for the faster performance groups were observed (p < 0.001, η2  = 0.014, η2  = 0.008, respectively). In summary, fast XC skiers adopted relatively even pacing independent of their age, and the older XC skiers adopted more even pacing than their younger counterparts of similar performance level suggesting that differences among age groups are performance-dependent.