Adaptation To Athletic Retirement And Perceptions About Aging: A .

A Qualitative Study of Retired Olympic Athleteswhich might result in declining health outcomes (Levy, 2009;Levy & Myers, 2004; Wurm et al., 2013). Perceptions about agingdevelop early in life, and negative perceptions about aging areprevalent among individuals from all age groups (Chasteen,Schwarz, & Park, 2002; Kotter-Grühn & Hess, 2012). Whilenegative perceptions about aging can have a less favorable influence on later life outcomes (Levy & Banaji, 2002), individuals withpositive perceptions about aging report lower levels of depressionand higher life satisfaction (Bryant et al., 2012; Kornadt &Rothermund, 2011), enhanced cognitive function (Mazerolle,Regner, Rigalleau, & Huguet, 2015), and are more likely to engagein preventive health behaviors and to exhibit greater longevity(Levy et al., 2002; Levy & Myers, 2004).In recent years, research on self-perceptions about aging andage stereotypes has emphasized the need to differentiate betweenviews on aging in different life domains (e.g., Rothermund &Kornadt, 2015; Wurm, Diehl, Kornadt, Westerhof, & Wahl, 2017).Perceptions about aging are dynamic and context dependent(e.g., Kornadt et al., 2020; Levy & Leifheit-Limson, 2009). Conceptualizations of older people in different contexts, with anunderstanding of the diverse social, economic, cultural, and otherfactors that can shape people’s lives, lead to differential applications of age stereotypes that are distinct from whether they arecategorized as being old (Kornadt & Rothermund, 2011).Role Models, Sports, and AgingEvidence suggests that perspectives on aging are shaped by culturally shared beliefs about older adults that are formed early in life,which can be shaped by role models (e.g., Hummert, Garstka,Shaner, & Strahm, 1995; Jopp, Jung, Damarin, Mirpuri, & Spini,2017). The importance of role models has been demonstratedthrough research focused on role models for successful agingamong young adults (e.g., Hurd & Zimmerman, 2010), as wellas among middle-aged and older adults via research focused on rolemodels for successful aging (Jopp et al., 2017). Having positive rolemodels for successful aging has led some to question or critiquenegative aging stereotypes (Levy & Banaji, 2002). Evidence alsosuggests that individuals are motivated by role models to varyingdegrees based on the individual’s goals and the extent to which arole model encourages strategies that fit the individual’s worldview(Lockwood, Jordan, & Kunda, 2002). Studies on role models insports have identified the importance of role models for athleticcareer development (Fleming, Hardman, Jones, & Sheridan, 2005)as well as subsequent career development and identity construction(e.g., Ronkainen, Ryba, & Selänne, 2019). Role models also play animportant role in youth sport participation (e.g., Fraser-Thomas &Côté, 2009) as well as sport and physical activity participation inadulthood (Carr, Smith, Weir, & Horton, 2018).Embodiment and Athletic RetirementThe body is at the heart of our social lives and is fundamental to oursense of self (Synnott, 2002): at all stages in life, the body can beconsidered an occupational resource that interacts with socialstructures to influence one’s adaptation to life transitions. As bodieschange with time, and decline due to injury or for other reasons, theeconomic and social standing they confer tends to deteriorate(Woodspring, 2016). Prior research examining individuals’ subjective interpretations of embodied experiences generated by alterations to the body, such as tattoos and reconstructive surgery, aswell as changes that occur with age, such as graying hair or829wrinkling skin (Gilleard & Higgs, 2015, 2017; Waskul & Riet,2002), illustrates the importance of examining perceptions of agingin relation to transformative experiences like retirement. Embodiment researchers have also investigated the extent to which sociallyembedded fears about physical decline and marginalization influence physical activity and exercise later in life (Dionigi, Horton, &Baker, 2012; Tulle, 2008; Whaley, 2003). Critical perspectives onembodiment suggest that the nature of physical experiences ismediated through the body’s interaction with the social world toshape individual perceptions of life transitions (Bourdieu, 1986;Foucault, 1973; Shilling, 2001).Embodiment has become an increasingly well-recognizedavenue of research that has enhanced understandings of corporealprocesses and changes in and to the body, as well as socialpreoccupations with youthfulness (Hyman, 2009; Keathley,Melissa, & Grace, 2013). The body is not a static entity but insteadcan be understood as fluid and subjectively interpreted. Corporealexperiences, such as physical decline, are experienced in ways thatinteract with social expectations about life transitions (Gilleard &Higgs, 2011; Griffin, 2017; Shilling, 2001). As such, adaptationto different physical, emotional, and social phenomena, such asretirement, become embodied experiences that can be examined toenhance personal and social understandings (Lee & Cho, 2018;Rai, Jongenelis, Jackson, Newton, & Pettigrew, 2019b).A growing literature has introduced greater insights into theretirement experiences of high-performance athletes (Grove et al.,1997; Kerr & Dacyshyn, 2000). Much of this literature has appliednarrative analytic techniques to focus on the unique retirementexperience of a particular athlete or set of young athletes froma particular sport (Agnew, Marks, Henderson, & Woods, 2017;Barker-Ruchti et al., 2019; Jewett, Kerr, & Tamminen, 2018). Thisapproach allows us to gain insights into the experiences of athletes ofdifferent ages and sports, thereby enhancing our understanding ofhow their perceptions of aging influence their adaptation to athleticretirement. It has also led to important questions about whetherengagement in high-performance sport is a pursuit that favors youthover physical maturity and perpetuates negative stereotypes aboutaging (Dionigi & O’Flynn, 2007; Oghene, McGannon, Schinke,Watson, & Quartiroli, 2015; Phoenix & Smith, 2011).Building on prior research, this exploratory study aims toexamine the athletic retirement experiences of high-performanceathletes, from a range of different sports and life domains, in order tobetter understand how their early perceptions about aging influencedtheir adaptation to athletic retirement. This study is informed byexisting research that emphasized the need to differentiate betweenviews on aging in different life domains (e.g., Rothermund &Kornadt, 2015; Wurm et al., 2017). It does so by exploring whetherand how perceptions about aging interact with life transitions indifferent contexts. Drawing from research suggesting that rolemodels can shape perceptions about aging (e.g., Hummert et al.,1995; Jopp et al., 2017), this study also explores how mature rolemodels who were present during participants’ competitive trainingyears influenced participants’ ideas about postretirement engagement. Furthermore, this study questions how subjective understandings of the body as a fluid, as opposed to a static, entity can enhanceinterpretations of the link between perceptions about aging andadaptation to athletic retirement.MethodQualitative research is an interpretative, naturalistic approach tounderstanding the meaning people bring to different phenomena.JAPA Vol. 29, No. 5, 2021Unauthenticated Downloaded 05/17/22 01:13 PM UTC

830SilverQualitative research begins with the assumption that there aremultiple, subjective realities, and the perspectives participantsshare matter (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). The guiding worldviewfor this study is constructivism, which asserts that individuals’perceptions of their experiences are constructed out of theirreflections on those experiences (Creswell & Miller, 2000;Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Patton, 1990). This approach seeks toelicit the responses of participants in a way that may create meaningor relevance in other contexts or may simply lay the foundation forfurther exploration (Finlay, 2006). This exploratory qualitativestudy employed semistructured interviews and applied a narrativeapproach (Chase, 2003; de Medeiros, 2013) to understand howperceptions about aging influenced adaptation to athletic retirementamong a sample of retired high-performance athletes.Design and ProceduresPurposive sampling techniques (Patton, 1990) were used to recruit24 high-performance athletes originally affiliated with the PanAmerican Games held in Toronto (Canada). With the assistanceof Game organizers and experts in the field of sports and recreation,the author established a set of inclusion criteria and identified aset of coaches and organizations that worked with retired highperformance athletes. The initial set of participants were recruitedthrough e-mail and targeted announcements by experts in athleticsand high-performance sport who shared information about thestudy and introduced the author to eligible participants. Additionalparticipants were recruited through snowball sampling, whereexisting participants were asked to share information about thestudy to other potentially eligible participants within their networks(Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Patton, 1990). For this exploratorystudy, the sample size was determined at the outset by the authorin consultation with experts in the field of sports and recreation,with the intention that the sample would include near even genderdistribution and participants from a range of different age groups,countries, and sports.The inclusion criteria were as follows: participants who hadrepresented their country in at least one Olympic Games competition and self-identified as being “retired” from their sport for over4 years at the time of interview. The 4-year retirement benchmarkcoincides with the reoccurrence of Olympic Games; it was selectedbecause it is not uncommon for high-performance athletes to retireonce they have participated in an Olympic Games, given theintensity that is required to train for competition in high-performance Olympic sports.A narrative approach encourages the researcher to listen toparticipants’ stories, to engage with participants, and to discusssubstantive issues directly with them (de Medeiros, 2013). Inkeeping with a traditional narrative approach, the primary objectiveduring each interview was to hear participants’ stories in a way thatfocused on their retirement experience while also considering theirperceptions about aging and retirement (de Vries, 2015). The semistructured interview guide was informed by prior research, whichemphasized that athletic retirement ought to be studied as a process,rather than a specific outcome or event captured by a singlemoment (Coakley, 2006; Kelly & Hickey, 2008), as well as alife course approach, which emphasizes how earlier life experiences can influence adaptation to later life transitions (Giele &Elder, 1998). To that end, a semistructured interview guide ensuredthat the same topics were covered during each interview while alsoallowing for the conversations to be sufficiently open so as to avoidrestrictions on topics or events that participants may raise. Thenarrative approach applied in this study assumed that participantswould have unique life experiences that would inform their subjective interpretations of their athletic retirement and subsequentlife experiences. The interviews were guided by the assumptionthat athletic retirement would be experienced as a significant lifeevent for all participants and that each participant would be ableto identify perceptions formed early in their lives about aging inlater life.During the interview process, participants were first asked toshare their life stories with a focus on their athletic retirementtransition: participants were asked to tell their story “from theearliest days that you can remember so that I can understand howyou first got into your sport up to your experience with retirementfrom your sport.” All participants were asked follow-up questionsthat focused on participants’ daily routines during their life priorto participating in an Olympic Games, the circumstances aroundparticipants’ retirement decisions, how they adapted to the end oftheir athletic career, and their postretirement daily routine andactivities. Typically, at the midpoint of each interview, participantswere asked to describe their early perceptions about aging—namely, ideas formed before their athletic retirement about whattheir own lives would be like as they grew older. Follow-upquestions focused on participants’ early ideas about what theirown aging in mid- and later adulthood would be like and, if relevant,the extent to which their early perceptions about aging influencedtheir retirement habits or activities. Participants were also asked todescribe their interactions with older adults and mature role modelswho were present in their lives during their competitive trainingyears. At the end of each interview participants were asked a seriesof demographic questions, following the work of Cunningham andSagas (2008) and Lawrence (2017), to determine gender identification, socioeconomic status, ethno-racial background, current age,and age at the time of their athletic retirement.In-depth interviews were conducted by the author and wereaudio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Interviews lasted approximately an hour and a half (range: 58–193 min). The majority ofinterviews took place in Canada; some were conducted in theUnited States and Europe and, in a few cases, via online videochat. All interviews were conducted in English. Notes were takenduring each interview. These notes were used immediately afterward to flesh out records, and an audit trail was created to enhancetransparency and establish conformability of the findings (Denzin &Lincoln, 2011; Miles & Huberman, 1994). In interpreting qualitative research, and in an effort to enhance rigor in qualitative research(Darawsheh & Stanley, 2014; Long & Johnson, 2000; Meyrick,2006), it should also be stated that the author of this study lackedpersonal experience as an athlete or coach. Informed written consentwas obtained from each participant. Ethical approval for this studywas received from the University of Toronto Social SciencesHumanities and Education Research Ethics Board. To protectthe confidentiality of all participants, pseudonyms are used, andpotentially revealing demographic information is presented in theaggregate.Data Analysis and Coding ProceduresThe analytic process followed a method often invoked in narrativegerontology and by story analysts from a range of disciplines(Atkinson & Delamont, 2006; de Medeiros, 2013). Audio recordings of each interview were listened to multiple times; after theaudio files were transcribed, each transcript was coded beginningwith an open-ended code sheet. The open-ended code sheetJAPA Vol. 29, No. 5, 2021Unauthenticated Downloaded 05/17/22 01:13 PM UTC

A Qualitative Study of Retired Olympic Athletesfeatured initial (first level) codes that corresponded to responses toquestions asked of each participant about how they first got intotheir sport and how they described their experience with retirementfrom their sport (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Saldaña, 2015). Timeline trajectory maps were developed, which described each participant’s athletic career and retirement trajectory: their entry intotheir sport, training, major life events before their athletic retirement, and other significant developments in and after their athleticretirement transition. Figure 1 presents a simplified example of aparticipant’s trajectory mapping.A second round of coding was then conducted, which focusedon participants’ descriptions of their postathletic retirement habitsand activities. From this, categories corresponding to groups ofcodes among participants emerged into the final themes. Based onparticipants’ responses, codes were refined into emergent themes,which pertained to exercise habits, engagement in civic activities,and a lack of engagement in structured habits or routine activities.Another set of coding focused on participants’ perceptions aboutaging whereby categories were created that corresponded to favorable, negative, and lack of early formed perceptions about aging.Initial codes and themes were organized with the assistance ofNVivo Software (version 10; QSR International, 2012).Codes were analyzed to integrate participants’ postathleticcareer retirement habits or activities and their perceptions aboutaging. A thematic framework was developed by clustering sharedexperiences. Patterns that emerged were guided by the trajectorymaps created in the first stage of coding and based firmly in thedescriptions provided by participants. To improve the validity offindings and to provide a record of the analytic process, written831memos summarizing the protocols, processes, and preliminaryfindings were shared with a panel of experts in the field of sportsand recreation. In addition, member checking (Creswell & Miller,2000; Sandelowski, 1993) was performed to enhance the author’sinterpretations by presenting summary thematic analyses to fiveparticipants who corroborated the author’s interpretations of the data.ParticipantsIn total, 24 retired athletes were interviewed. Each participant represented one of 12 countries at an Olympic Games (Argentina, Australia,Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Kenya, Japan, Poland,Russia, and the United States) and competed in one of 12 differentsports (alpine skiing, athletics, diving, football, gymnastics, ice hockey,judo, kayaking, rowing, ski jumping, speed skating, and swimming).Key characteristics of the participants are presented in Table 1. Theaverage age of the participants at the time of the interview was 52(range: 25–78); 8 participants identified as female and 16 identified asmale, 15 participants self-identified as “White” and nine participantsself-identified as having distinct non-White ethno-racial backgrounds,and all participants identified as having obtained the equivalent of ahigh school degree and being above the poverty threshold. Participantsretired from their sport between the ages of 15 and 36 years old, withthe average retirement age being 24 years old.FindingsParticipants described their athletic retirement as a challenging lifeevent which marked their transition into early adulthood andFigure 1 — Sample trajectory map.JAPA Vol. 29, No. 5, 2021Unauthenticated Downloaded 05/17/22 01:13 PM UTC

832SilverTable 1Participant InformationPseudonymSportGender identificationCountry tballJudoSpeed skatingSwimmingFootballGymnasticsRowingIce hockeyDivingJudoAthleticsSwimmingIce hockeySpeed skatingGymnasticsAthleticsAlpine skiingAthleticsRowingSki eFemaleMaleMaleFemaleMaleMaleMaleFemaleMaleGreat reat BritainPolandJapanBrazilKenyaCanadaDenmarkGreat BritainCanadaCanadaDenmarkAustraliaUnited StatesUnited StatesCanadaAustraliaAustraliasignified a shift in their life’s purpose. Participants’ transitions toathletic retirement coincided with significant changes in their bodies;many former athletes either gained or lost significant amounts ofweight when they stopped training, and several retired with seriousinjuries. In retirement, and as their bodies deteriorated from beingamong the best in the world at their sport, some participants struggledto identify their formative ideas about aging, and all struggled in theirquest to identify a new sense of purpose that was not tied strictlyto their physical abilities. In examining their struggles through thetransition to becoming retired athletes, three key themes emerged:(a) perceptions about aging influenced participants’ exercise habits inretirement, (b) perceptions about aging motivated participants toengage in civic-minded retirement activities, and (c) participants wholacked formative perceptions about aging associated their athleticretirement with their own lost sense of purpose.Theme 1: Perceptions About Aging InfluencedExercise Participation in RetirementA subset of participants described how perceptions about agingshaped their exercise habits in the wake of their athletic retirement.Among this subset, some participants held positive ideas aboutaging that motivated their engagement in postretirement exercise,while others described how fears and negative perceptions aboutaging motivated them to keep active. Participants also associatedtheir perceptions about aging with a reduced interest in continuingto exercise at the termination of their athletic careers.Participants, like Nala, described how favorable impressionsof aging fostered a strong interest in remaining physically activeAge when retiredAge at 05650when their athletic careers ended. Nala retired from gymnasticswhen she was 17 years old, after a serious accident that took placeduring training. She struggled with her athletic retirement, bothphysically and emotionally. Though her injuries might have preempted any subsequent engagement in exercise, Nala attributed herrecovery to the fact that she had been raised in an intergenerationalhousehold where she regularly interacted with her elderly grandmother and aunt, who both demonstrated the importance ofexercising later in life. She explained,When I retired, I was wrecked. What helped me become who Iam now, was thinkin’ about my aunties and my grandma, andtheir strength : : : . They showed me that to live long you haveto be strong and keep moving. (Nala, 42, gymnastics)Nala was constantly reminded of the importance of exercise inaging, largely by her aunt and grandmother, who continued to workand exercise well into their 80s. She viewed her continued engagement in exercise as critical to her adaptation to retirement andcredited the older women in her family with helping her viewexercise as an important part of aging.Peter also described his early perceptions about aging asfavorable and shaped by older family members. Much of hisformative impressions of aging were based on his father’s stoicnature and consistent athleticism. Like Nala, Peter struggled withthe end of his athletic career and looked to his family for models ofhow to adapt to critical life transitions. Although Peter looked backon the end of his competitive athletic career as a difficult time, heexplained that remaining physically active was the factor that mosthelped him endure the transition. Peter knew exercise wouldJAPA Vol. 29, No. 5, 2021Unauthenticated Downloaded 05/17/22 01:13 PM UTC

A Qualitative Study of Retired Olympic Athletesremain an important part of his life because he observed thepositive role it played in his father’s life. Peter’s father remainedphysically active throughout his own life and consistently emphasized the importance of exercising to Peter. As he was reflectingback on his athletic retirement Peter said,I retired ok because I’d had a good outlook on getting old. Iwent on and focused on other things, work, family, stayingactive. My father was always my inspiration. (Peter, 67, alpineskiing)Unlike Nala and Peter, Carlos had long held negative ideas aboutaging, which he credited as his motivation to stay physically activewhen his athletic career ended. Carlos viewed his coaches and olderrole models from his youth as poor examples of how to agegracefully. He described several examples of adults who hadeach struggled with alcoholism and being overweight. In a desireto take a different approach to aging, Carlos explained that heviewed exercise as the key to his own positive adjustment toretirement. He said,I never looked up to my coaches : : : . I knew I never wanted toend up like them—physically or in any other way : : : . I amnow in the best shape of my life maybe because I never wantedto end up like the models I had growi

A Qualitative Study of Retired Olympic Athletes Michelle Pannor Silver Self-perceptions about aging have implications for health and well-being; however, less is known about how these perceptions influence adaptation to major life transitions.The goal of this study was to examine how high-performance athletes' perceptions