Transition out of elite sports

Description

The overall purpose of this thesis is to increase the scientific knowledge on the relationship between the national (sport) context and the transition out of elite sport by examining and comparing the retirement process of former Swiss, Danish, and Polish elite athletes, as well as by describing the three contexts under comparison in more detail. The research project is based on two sets of empirical material: (a) a survey with former Swiss, Danish, and Polish elite athletes from various sports; and (b) semi-structured interviews with experts working with elite athletes and dual career programs in each of the three countries. On the basis of a modified version of the framework developed by Stambulova, Stephan, and Jäphag (2007), which combines previous transition models with the ecological perspective of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), analyses revealed that athletes from the three countries differed in their precondition for the transitions, their adaptation difficulties, and their life/job situation after the sports career. Different educational levels and work experience at the end of the sports career indicated that athletes receive diverse support for their dual career. The cross-cultural analysis of the dual career environments revealed not only that programs and opportunities for dual career athletes differ substantially between the three contexts, but also that the dual career experts expressed divergent values and beliefs about how to support elite athletes. Typical context-dependent typologies of dual career patterns of elite athletes are suggested. The findings of this thesis suggest that the national context plays an important role in the transition out of elite sport, and thus context-specific recommendations are proposed.