AUTHOR=Boardman Neil , Jones Luke , Toner John , Avner Zoë 

TITLE=“You can't tee them up for retirement because we have to go out and win gold medals…”: a Foucauldian exploration of Olympic coaching logic and athletic retirement

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sports and Active Living

VOLUME=Volume 7 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sports-and-active-living/articles/10.3389/fspor.2025.1678053

DOI=10.3389/fspor.2025.1678053

ISSN=2624-9367

ABSTRACT=IntroductionDespite decades of research into the phenomena of athletic retirement, many modern athletes continue to report difficulties in adjusting to life beyond sport. As a result, the issue of athletic retirement has become a significant concern for those working within high-performance settings. However, there remains a distinct lack of critical attention regarding how key actors within athletes' lives (e.g., coaches) shape and impact upon their capacities to adjust to post-sport life.MethodsIn this paper, we address this gap in research by presenting qualitative data from interviews with eight coaches working in the context of Olympic sport in the United Kingdom to examine their perspectives regarding the athlete retirement process.Results and DiscussionDrawing upon Foucault's conceptualization of disciplinary power-knowledge, our analysis illustrates how Olympic coaches' perspectives and experiences of athletic retirement can be linked to the modernist logic and normalizing pressures that characterize Olympic level coaching environments.