<![CDATA[First-year students entering Sports Education programs are often assumed to possess high physical fitness, yet this assumption requires empirical verification at entry. This study profiled the cardiorespiratory fitness of first-year Sports Education students using the Multistage Fitness Test (MFT) and described variation by sex. Forty students (25 male, 15 female; 19.8 ± 0.7 years) completed the MFT. Overall estimated VO₂max was 37.47 ± 4.76 mL·kg⁻¹·min⁻¹ (range: 28.9–48.1), with 77.5% classified as poor (45.0%) or fair (32.5%), compared with 15.0% good and 2.5% excellent. Male students showed higher estimated VO₂max than females (39.68 ± 4.21 vs. 33.80 ± 3.09 mL·kg⁻¹·min⁻¹), while females were more concentrated in the very-poor and poor categories. Mean BMI was 21.7 ± 2.7 kg/m², providing anthropometric context but not evidence of a fitness determinant. Overall, the findings challenge the assumption that Sports Education enrollment reflects uniformly high cardiorespiratory fitness and instead demonstrate substantial variation in students’ fitness at entry. The MFT-derived profile provides an institution-specific baseline for differentiated conditioning, curriculum planning, and subsequent fitness monitoring.]]>
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