Life Beyond Olympic Sport: A Foucauldian Examination of Olympians’ Experiences and Coaches’ Perspectives of Athletic Retirement

The Olympic project is built upon modernist foundations. Olympic sport cultures across the world have been shaped by modernist, neoliberal discourses that emphasise the importance of athlete control and performance. In recent years, reports by NGBs, such as The Whyte Review, have exposed that an immersion within the cultures of British Olympic sport can have damaging effects for athletes’ physical and mental well-being. However, current understandings of the residual implications of an Olympic career are limited. Therefore, the aim of this study was to understand how an immersion within the cultures of British Olympic sport might impact upon Olympians’ long-term retirement experiences.For this study, I conducted interviews with 18 retired British Olympians and eight Olympic standard coaching practitioners. A Foucauldian theoretical framework was used to analyse the data. Foucault’s (1990; 1991a) work provided a means for conceptualising how former Olympians’ experiences and coaches’ perspectives of retirement are shaped by relations of power.I found that the lived experiences, bodies, and movements of retired British Olympians remain intimately connected to the power arrangements that typified their careers, often well beyond their immediate retirement adjustments. Indeed, my analysis suggested that, although the lasting implications of an Olympic career can be damaging, these effects are typically experienced inconsistently and non-linearly, and that resistance is possible for retirees. Also, I found that Olympic coaches’ understandings of the Olympic retirement process are heavily influenced by disciplinary power-knowledge relations; this has implications for how coaches consider the problematic of athletic retirement and how they approach transitioning Olympians. I argue that the dominance of this logic has underlying implications for Olympians’ capacities to think effectively about their retirement adjustments. My findings demonstrate the necessity of continuing to problematise the modernist cultures of British Olympic sport to better support Olympians’ retirement adjustments in the future.