A qualitative study on elite athletes giving up their pursuit of elite level sports

Abstract

This paper investigates the reasons for elite athletes in Singapore giving up their pursuit of elite level sports through an exploratory research. There has been prominent research on the sociology and history of sports in Singapore by Dr. Ken Peh and Dr. Nick Aplin, however little emphasis has been given to the experiences of elite athletes and the reasons for them not pursuing elite sport as a career.

Three focus groups interviews were done to uncover subtleties and complexities about participants based on their individual and unique human experience and establish trends and causality. It was discovered that all participants mentioned these factors as reasons for giving up elite level sport; “career & income”, “probability of success”, “presence of alternative commitments”, and “presence of alternative choices”. The factors of “psychological issues” and “lack of learning and growth opportunities” were raised by all but one participant. Recommendations of a stronger sporting culture and support network, and a “Life after Sports” package have been proposed in the paper.

In all, this is an exploratory research, where the themes uncovered cannot be generalized for the entire population. Further research should be done with more in-depth focus groups or interviews, together with more participants to identify stronger trends and address a wider range of concerns.