Konings & Hettinga 2018, competition and pacing decisions (review)

Critical review in Sports Medicine of how interpersonal competition shapes pacing decisions, drawing on 75 papers. The presence and behaviour of opponents systematically alters pacing: athletes adjust their intensity to their competitors, especially early in a race, rather than following a fixed internal template. Head-to-head competition can lift performance compared with racing alone, but it can also draw athletes into tactically driven, sometimes energetically sub-optimal pacing. The authors argue that pacing should be modelled as a human–environment interaction, which supports treating tactical racing as a real, distinct layer on top of physiological pacing. Much of the underlying primary evidence comes from cycling, skating and swimming rather than running, so the framework transfers but the running-specific data are thinner.