Key result
Elite winter athletes demonstrate lower attention alerting scores than controls, particularly biathletes compared to skiers.
Why the study?
Attentional network efficiency had not been previously investigated in elite winter endurance athletes comparing biathletes and cross-country skiers.
Does elite winter endurance athlete status (specifically biathlon vs cross-country skiing) alter attentional network efficiency compared to sedentary controls?
Cross-Sectional (n=64)
Does elite winter endurance athlete status (specifically biathlon vs cross-country skiing) alter attentional network efficiency compared to sedentary controls?
Effect estimate: Cohen d 0.592
Absolute Event Rate: 13.1% vs 25.9%
p-value: p=0.041
Elite winter endurance athletes, particularly biathletes, exhibit task-specific calibration of attentional networks, demonstrating a 'cognitive shield' that suppresses automatic attention shifts to maintain focus under high physiological load.
Should not yet alter athlete assessment or training; hypothesis-generating for sport-specific attentional adaptation requiring longitudinal validation.
This study provides the first investigation of attentional network efficiency in elite winter endurance athletes, comparing biathletes and cross-country skiers. Utilizing the Attention Network Test (ANT), we assessed the orienting, alerting, and executive networks in 44 elite athletes (15 biathletes, 29 skiers) and 20 sedentary controls. The key findings reveal that the winter elite athletes together demonstrated a significantly lower alerting score compared to controls [13.1 ± 2.9 vs. 25.9 ± 5.2, Welsh's t (63) = 2.134, p = 0.041, Cohen d = 0.592], interpreted as a neural signature of sustained readiness, where the nervous system is perpetually primed, diminishing the benefit of external warning cues. This capacity was manifested even more in biathletes than cross-country skiers and was also extended to spatiotemporal cues [combined score of alerting and orienting: 61.3 ± 9.4 vs. 90.2 ± 4.7, Welsh's t (43) = 2.740, p = 0.012, Cohen d = 0.918]. This attenuated response to both temporal and spatial cues is posited as a trained “cognitive shield,” enabling biathletes to suppress automatic shifts of attention to spatial cues in parallel with sustained alerting state—a critical adaptation for maintaining precise marksmanship amidst the physiological noise and environmental distractions of shooting under high cardiovascular load. No group differences were found in executive attention networks and overall reaction time, underscoring the relevance of specific components of attention to these sports. The results demonstrate that the attentional architecture of elite athletes is not broadly enhanced but is precisely calibrated by their sport's unique demands, highlighting a remarkable degree of task-specific performance optimization under pressure.
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Polikanova et al. (2026) conducted a cross-sectional in Elite winter endurance athletes (n=64). Elite winter endurance athlete status vs. Sedentary controls was evaluated on Alerting score on the Attention Network Test (ANT) (Cohen d 0.592, p=0.041). Elite winter athletes demonstrated lower alerting scores than controls (13.1 vs 25.9, p=0.041), while biathletes showed lower combined alerting and orienting scores than skiers (p=0.012).
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