Abstract: Objective: the research is to investigate the factors of key morphology and key skill which affect sport performance of Chinese and foreign elite female beach volleyball players and to find the key skill gap between Chinese and world-class female beach volleyball players. Methods: Taking the examples of 24 pairs (totally 48 players) of female beach volleyball players of the 2012 London Olympic Games and by using the principal component analysis and Chi-square test, this paper discusses the factors of key morphology and key skill which affect sport performance of Chinese and foreign elite female beach volleyball players, the purpose of which is to find the key skill gap between Chinese and world-class female beach volleyball players. Results: (1) The contribution rate of age, height, body mass, defense success rate, blocking success rate, service scoring rate, attack success rate was 0.145、0.065、0.065、0.284、0.284、0.079、0.079, respectively. (2) The service scoring rate and the attack success rate of Chinese are higher than that of the USA, while the defense success rate of Chinese are lower than that of USA, yet no difference is found between these two teams(P>0.05). The blocking success rate of Chinese is statistically lower than that of the USA. Conclusions: (1) The factors of key morphology and key skill which affect the sport performance of Chinese and foreign elite female beach volleyball players include age, height, body mass, defense success rate, blocking success rate, service scoring rate and attack success rate. (2) The key skill gap between Chinese and American players is mainly reflected in their blocking success rate.

Key words: principal component analysis, beach volleyball, world-class female athletes, sport performance, key skill, key morphology