Syracuse

Vocational careers of retired Olympic athletes from Switzerland : a person-oriented study / Michael J Schmid... [et al.]

Schmid, Michael J.

For many high-performance athletes, competing in the Olympic Games is a major goal. Achieving this goal requires more than ever substantial investments of time and personal resources towards the sports career over several years. Thus, some athletes neglect other areas of life (e.g. education), which can pose a problem for the time after high-performance sport, while other athletes pursue a dual career. Previous studies have shown that former high-performance athletes achieved higher levels of education and better vocational positions than the general population. Due to the advancing professionalization and commercialization of high-performance sport, the question emerges whether these results are valid for athletes that are more recently retired. In addition, cross-cultural generalisability of these findings are of interest. For this purpose, 341 former athletes representing Switzerland at the Olympics were surveyed about their athletic, educational, and vocational careers.

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