Assessment of Trait Anxiety Levels on Elite Junior and U23 Croatian Wrestlers

Purpose: Athletes are faced with competitive surrounding all the time where they are required to perform at high levels in high-pressure situations. This can often lead to anxiety so the aim of this study was to investigate levels of trait anxiety among elite, national team Croatian junior and U23 male wrestlers and to examine differences in trait anxiety between national team members in 2010 and 2017. Methods: The study was conducted on two different groups of athletes, each tested at one time period (one group was tested in 2010 and the other in 2017). The participants were Croatian junior and U23 greco-roman national team members at the time when testing was conducted (N2010=16; N2017=9). We used a theory of competitive anxiety (Martens, Vealy, and Burton, 1990) and Croatian version of SCAT questionnaire (Sport Competition Anxiety Test, Martens,1977) to measure levels of trait anxiety in elite wrestlers. Descriptive statistics, as well as Mann-Whithey U-test, were used to examine the levels of trait anxiety and the difference between two groups of national team members. Results: There was no difference in trait anxiety levels between members of junior and U23 wrestling national team in 2010 and 2017 suggesting these two groups experienced similar levels of precompetition anxiety. Conclusions: These results can help in further understanding which are the levels of trait anxiety for elite wrestlers.