Retirement, transition and post-athlete life between brazilian olympic corridors

Abstract

This research aimed to identify and analyze the meanings of the retirement, career transition and post-athlete life based on the biographical narrative of female Brazilian Olympic runners. Result of a dialogical and collaborative work between athlete (narrator) and researcher (listener), the biographical narrative allowed highlighting, in a preliminary way, that the retirement and career transition are not experiences mediated only by characteristics inherent in high professional sports performance, such as age, pain or performance curve. The gender relations and the alienating potential of the high work demands of sports also cross the woman-athlete life since the beginning of her sporting trajectory, leading her to adopt more provident and autonomous positions of preparation for the transition and resignification of the athletic identity.