Fabien Ohl

The socialization of young cyclists and the culture of doping

The objective of this article is to understand how the specific interactions between actors involved in the production of performance influence the socialization process by which cyclists learn their job. In particular, we try to understand how these interactions determine the reported attitudes towards doping products and methods. We focused on the interactions within the work group to understand how young cyclists learn their job. While analysing this organization of work, our goal is to understand how it influences the perception of the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). We compared socialization of young elite and U23 cyclists in Belgium, France and Switzerland. We analysed the economic, legal and organizational conditions in each country, and we conducted 70 semi-structured interviews with cyclists and their staff.

An alternative approach to the prevention of doping in cycling

BACKGROUND Framed by an overly reductionist perspective on doping in professional cycling as an individual moral failing, anti-doping policies tend to envisage a combination of education and repression as the primary intervention strategies. We offer an alternative approach, which seeks to understand doping practices as embedded in social relations, especially in relation to team organisation and employment conditions. METHODS We undertake an in-depth analysis of the functioning of nine of the 40 world professional cycling teams, and the careers of the 2,351 riders who were or have been professionals since 2005. RESULTS We find that anti-doping approaches rest upon questionable assumptions of doping as an individual moral fault, and have not produced the anti-doping effects expected or intended. Based on an analysis of team practices, and the ways in which riders produce their achievements, we offer an alternative perspective which emphasises doping as a product of social-economic condition. Our findings emphasise employment and business models, as well as day-to-day working conditions, as structural drivers of doping practices in which individuals and teams engage. CONCLUSION Anti-doping requires structural as well as cultural change within the sport of professional cycling, especially in the ways teams function economically.

The genesis and effect of French anti-doping policies in cycling

This paper focuses on the transformation of French public policy on doping and its effects on the life of cycling professionals. We first focus on the emergence and the evolution of French public policies against doping in cycling. Then the article attempts to qualitatively observe the effects of policies on cyclists. The objective is to understand how the cycling culture is evolving. This article is based on 39 interviews with new and seasoned professionals, as well as ethnographic observations over a dozen years.

Social contexts of sports-practicing youths' hazardous drinking

Sports-practicing youths are at an elevated risk for alcohol use and misuse. Although much attention has recently been given to depicting subgroups facing the greatest threats, little evidence exists on the contexts in which their drinking takes place. Using data from a cross-sectional study on youth sports participation and substance use in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, this study focused on the social contexts associated with hazardous drinking of 894 sports-practicing adolescents aged 16 to 20. Divided between those who had been drunk in the last month (hazardous drinkers, n = 315) and those who had not (n = 579), sports-practicing adolescents were compared on reported gatherings (sports-related, sports-unrelated, mixed) likely linked to their drinking behaviour. Mixed social contexts, followed by sports-unrelated ones, were reported as the most common context by both male and female youths who practiced sports. After controlling for several possible confounders, male hazardous drinkers were more than 3 times more likely to report sports-unrelated social contexts as the most common, compared to sport-related ones, while females were more than 7 times more likely to do so. Our findings seem to indicate that, rather than focusing only on sports-related factors, prevention of alcohol misuse among sports-practicing youths should also pay attention to the social contextualisation of their hazardous drinking.

Moral disengagement in the legitimation and realization of aggressive behavior in soccer and ice hockey.

The aim of the present study was to verify that the level of tolerance for aggression is higher in a collective context than in an individual context (polarization effect), and to test the association between moral disengagement, team and self-attitudes toward aggression, and tolerance and realization of aggressive acts in Swiss male soccer and ice hockey. In individual or collective answering conditions, 104 soccer and 98 ice hockey players viewed videotaped aggressive acts and completed a questionnaire, including measures of the perceived legitimacy of videotaped aggression, of the teammates, coach, and self attitudes toward transgressions (modified TNQ), of the moral disengagement in sport (modified MDSS-S), and of self-reported aggressive behavior. A multilevel analysis confirmed a strong polarization effect on the perception of instrumental aggression, the videotaped aggressive acts appearing more tolerated in the collective than in the individual answering condition. Using a structural equation modeling, we found that the moral disengagement, which mediates the effects of perceived coach and ego attitudes toward transgressions, correlates positively with the tolerance of hostile aggression within teams, and with the level of aggressive acts reported by the participants. Aggr. Behav. Aggr. Behav. 42:123-133, 2015.

Consuming sports: distinction, univorism and omnivorism

The question of the social usage of culture and its links with social groups continues to be a topic of discussion. The aim of this article is to contribute to the debate by examining coherence in the choice of physical activities and sports. The study focuses on upper social groups, questioning, from a macro-sociological standpoint, their possible omnivority and their dissonance of choice with regard to these activities. Based on a quantitative survey of sports participated in by the French, the study shows that omnivority and massification of activities are major phenomena. However, upper social groups in France remain distinguishable, in terms of both their ‘high level of omnivority’ and their choice of distinctive activities. Dissonance is another of their characteristics, although to a lesser extent.

La reconversion des sportifs : une épreuve de la petitesse?

Résumé Le sport de haut niveau se caractérise par une emprise très importante de l’espace et du temps et une définition de soi très liée au statut de sportif. Notre étude porte sur les conséquences de cette emprise lors de l’arrêt d’une carrière sportive. Nous avons pris l’exemple du triathlon. Bien qu’il y ait peu de triathlètes professionnels en France, il y a de nombreux « anonymes » du haut niveau dont les professions aménagées leur permettent de se consacrer presque totalement à leur carrière sportive. Arrêter sa carrière impose une reconversion de ses occupations mais constitue, dans bien des cas, une épreuve identitaire. En effet, il s’agit pour ces sportifs de quitter une vie organisée autour de la pratique du triathlon en compétition. Ce changement de situation peut devenir une véritable « épreuve de la petitesse », pour ceux qui ont connu la grandeur. Pour étudier la fin de carrière et ses difficultés, nous nous sommes adossés à une analyse qualitative des reconversions et de leurs conséquences. Nous constatons que l’épreuve de la fin de carrière n’est pas uniforme. Elle dépend des différentes ressources que peuvent mobiliser les athlètes mais également des singularités de leurs situations. Les reconversions peuvent être limitées, lorsque les athlètes prolongent leur grandeur en restant dans le milieu sportif ou en développant des activités en lien avec le sport. La reconversion peut également être facilitée par un investissement dans la sphère domestique. Bien s’arrêter suppose aussi de gérer le moment de rupture et de laisser des traces qui permettent de réduire l’épreuve du retrait en partant de façon honorable. L’analyse des reconversions permet de montrer que les triathlètes mobilisent une diversité de ressources afin de se « réinventer » une singularité.

The denegation of the economy - the example of climbing in France.

Free-climbing is used as a privileged way of studying the positioning generated by the meeting of the symbolic economy of sport and a market that is trying to extend its hold on it. In order to understand why money has become an internal problem to the free-climbing space, the article analyses how its symbolic economy and its market are organized. As the economization of free-climbing took place almost simultaneously with its advent, free-climbers had to take an immediate stand. At the end of the 1980s, nearly 25 years after the establishment of free-climbing, opposition to its marketization was still strong among its enthusiasts because the symbolic economy of the free-climbing world was at stake. Free-climbers use the denegation of the economy to overcome the contradictions between their anti-economic ethos and the marketing of their performances, while at the same time expressing the values of the social categories to which the sportsmen and sportswomen belong. Thus, denegation is not a conscious way of being close to the climbing culture; it underlines the beliefs that in climbing value does not, as in some other social spaces, depend on the individual’s economic capital but on free-climbing culture.

Secondary socialisation and the consumption of sporting goods: cross cultural dimensions.

The aim of the paper is to understand the social usage of sporting goods. Our observations show that goods are not only necessary to practice; they reveal values, social networks and consumption patterns which are an integral part of the sports culture. The consumption of sporting goods is often used to shape an identity, usually positive, to obtain recognition and to have new social and bodily experiences. We argue that sporting goods consumption is related to social presentations, representations and narratives that express the symbolic boundaries of ones self and is a resource in the construction of subcultures.

Managing natural Locations For Outdoor Recreation

Abstract In France, the legitimacy of public policy is set in a context of decreasing support for public institutions. As a consequence, policy makers increasingly rely upon the concept of civil society in their political actions. This is the case for the creation of sport policy on contentious issues, such as the use of outdoor recreation sites. This study investigated the origins and operationalization of the policy for consultation regarding the case of outdoor activities. The study observed the intentions of policy-makers and the effects of political choices. To do so required studying the effects of the consultation process and the participation of delegates in the development of tools for resolution of conflicts over use of natural spaces for the purpose of sport. This paper presents a case for conducting participative and co-constructed management of sport and nature, with positive effects supporting this method of public management.