Elsa Kristiansen

Young elite athletes and social support: coping with competitive and organizational stress in “Olympic” competition

Elite adolescent sport is a relatively unexplored research field. The purpose of this investigation was to examine how the Norwegian Olympic Youth Team (N=29) experienced competitive and organizational stress during the European Youth Olympic Festival in July 2007 and how they coped with the stressors. Participants were aged 14–17 and competed in handball, track and field, swimming, and judo. We used a qualitative methodology with interviews and open‐ended questionnaires. Qualitative content analyses revealed that the athletes experienced competitive stressors because of the size and importance of the competition, and organizational stressors (e.g., housing, lining up for food, and transportation) exacerbated by the extreme heat during the Festival. The elite competitive experience was novel to all and overwhelming for some of the more “inexperienced” athletes. The athletes used cognitive coping strategies to some extent in addition to relying on different types of social support. The findings revealed the need for social support for adolescent athletes, and underlined the importance of a good coach–athlete relationship in order to perform well and enjoy the competitive experience.

Organizational and media stress among professional football players: testing an achievement goal theory model.

The purpose of this study was to investigate media and coach–athlete stress experienced by professional football players and their relationship to motivational variables by testing an achievement goal theory (AGT) stress model. In order to do so, we developed scales specifically designed to assess media and coach–athlete stress. Eighty‐two elite football players (Mage=25.17 years, SD=5.19) completed a series of questionnaires. Correlations and bootstrapping were used as primary statistical analyses, supplemented by LISREL, to test the hypotheses. Results revealed that a mastery climate was directly and negatively associated with coach–athlete stress, while a performance climate was directly and positively associated with coach–athlete stress. In addition, an indirect positive path between the performance climate and media stress was revealed through ego orientation. These findings support some of the key postulates of AGT; a mastery climate reduces the perception of stress among athletes, and the converse is true for a performance climate. Coaches of elite footballers are advised to try to reduce the emphasis on performance criteria because of its stress‐reducing effects.

Organizational Stress and Coping in U.S. Professional Soccer

The present study was an exploration of organizational stressors perceived by U.S. professional soccer players, and the coping strategies they employed to manage these stressors. Eight players (four female and four male) were interviewed during pre-season training camps. Results of data analysis revealed that contracts, draft, league and team structure, coach-athlete interaction, salaries, and travel demands were the most commonly cited areas of stress. Participants used avoidance, problem-focused, and social support coping strategies to manage these organizational stressors. In conclusion, more concern should be placed on the impact that organizational stressors can have on athletic performances.

The sustainability of the Youth Olympic Games: stakeholder networks and institutional perspectives.

This paper explored the Youth Olympic Games’ (YOG) potential sustainability (survival and success) through an analysis of how actors exert various forms of pressure on the YOG. Given the impact of the Olympic Games and of youth on society, it becomes important to study the newest member of the Olympic Family. Combining stakeholder, network and institutional literatures, a case study of the first Winter YOG in Innsbruck (Austria) was built by means of observations and interviews. The stakeholder network analysis revealed three central stakeholders for the YOG’s sustainability: the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the media (press and broadcast), and the athletes’ parents. The institutional context was challenged by stakeholders’ changing levels of relative saliency, and notably by the parents’ emerging saliency. Practically speaking, YOG managers need to be diplomats in balancing pressures originating from the international (IOC) and local (parents) institutional contexts.

Coping with the Media at the Vancouver Winter Olympics: “We All Make a Living Out of This”

The purpose of this study was to examine the journalist-athlete relationship at a major competitive event to better understand how the media may be perceived as a source of strain and how elite athletes cope with the media demands. Ten participants were interviewed after the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games. Intrusive questioning may negatively affect and influence the athletes preparation for events. The use of coping strategies to deal with the media demands and reporting becomes important. In addition, the team support personnel should employ mastery motivational strategies to keep the athlete task involved.

Coaching communication issues with elite female athletes: Two Norwegian case studies

The aim of this study was to examine the careers of two successful female elite athletes who later stagnated, and to identify possible factors that might have led to their demotivation. Individual interviews and a focus group interview were conducted. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the stories of April and Hazel raised several issues related to coaching, coach education, and the development of female athletes. Their individual profiles revealed that their perception of the lack of long‐term development was caused by coach miscommunication, having to cope with sudden fame, and injuries provoked by overtraining. The coach–athlete relationship was discussed with a focus on the inexperience of some coaches, the number of coaches the athletes had to deal with, sociolinguistic issues, and the differing criteria of success communicated. Finally, the importance of their national governing bodies to focus on knowledge transfer, the supervision of coaches, and the infrastructure to monitor athletes were discussed.

Coping with negative media content: The experiences of professional football goalkeepers

The present study explored the experiences of three football goalkeepers coping with negative media coverage. Goalkeeping is a hard position to play as you become scrutinized from all angles, and keepers are often blamed for losses by the media. The study of the media as a stressor is a relatively unexplored field. In this investigation, we chose qualitative semi-structured interviews as an explorative method. The respondents who were interviewed came from three different teams in a European Premier Division. Results revealed that the coping strategies used by the three goalkeepers may be organized into three major categories; social support, avoidance and problem-focused coping. The evaluation of the coach meant more than the game reports printed in the press. To cope with the perceived negative content in the media, the goalkeepers avoided buying, reading or watching news reports, or giving interviews on match day. With experience, the goalkeepers reported getting better in focusing on the task and the next move, and did not worry as much about the match reports. Experience seemed to be crucial for this specialist position.

Developing young athletes: The role of private sport schools in the Norwegian sport system

The aim of the paper is to analyse the increasingly prominent role of private sports schools in the development of elite athletes in Norway. The context for the analysis is the apparent paradox between the emergence of a network of sports schools, the most successful of which are private and require that parents pay a fee, and the social democratic values of Norway. Data were collected through a series of interviews with 35 respondents from nine stakeholder groups, including athletes, coaches, parents and sport school managers. The research describes an elite sport system that is successful in producing medal-winning athletes, but which is organisationally fragmented, uncoordinated and under-funded with regard to youth talent identification and development and susceptible to tensions between key actors. The primary analytical framework is Kingdon’s multiple streams framework augmented by path dependency theory. The findings include, a picture of an elite youth sport development system in which multiple and overlapping problems have received, at best, only partial policy solutions some of which, such as the growth of private sports schools, have emerged by default. When focusing attention on the relationship between structure and agency in the policy process it is argued that the government, through its inaction, has allowed sports schools the policy space to expand. The consequence is that the government has, whether deliberately or not, enabled the strengthening of a commercial elite youth sport development system, while still preserving its egalitarian and non-interventionist credentials.

The Youth Olympic Games: the best of the Olympics or a poor copy?

Abstract This paper explores the new event in the Olympic Movement, the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Innsbruck, Austria, in 2012, and examines the similarities and differences between the winter editions of the YOG and the Olympic Games (OG). The qualitative case study utilised a stakeholder approach and revealed four main groupings that differed in relative salience as compared to the OG: the host core stakeholders, international core stakeholders, sponsors and media, and parents and other stakeholders. From an external perspective, the YOG had the general ‘look-and-feel’ of the OG, despite their smaller size and relatively lesser involvement by sponsors and the media. However, this may have helped showcase the Olympic Movement tenets like those presented in the Culture and Education Programme. The YOG were thus closer to the Olympic ideals than the OG. We further discuss this and other paradoxes and disconnects requiring further debate and analysis.

Walking the line: how young athletes balance academic studies and sport in international competition

Abstract Focused on the Norwegian squad for the 2015 European Youth Olympic Festival, the aims of this study are to identify (a) the perceived role of important stakeholders such as coaches, schools, parents, federations, and the national Olympic committee for the young athletes in the weeks leading up to the festival; and (b) the young athletes’ festival experiences with a focus on perceived stressors by using the transactional framework. The findings of the study revealed that pursuing a dual career is often a challenging balancing act for the young student-athletes. Additional results identified the importance of supportive parents, schools that adapt the workload for the student-athletes, and a federation that recognizes the important role of parents and schools. While the rhetoric for the festival was that it was a ‘learning experience’ for the young athletes, the young athletes perceived the event as a serious sporting competition and were aware of factors which might cause stress and thus interfere with optimal performance. This investigation offers implications for sport management and psychology researchers gaining insight into young athletes and youth sport festivals.