Purpose
Ambition and dedication are commonly regarded as positive qualities associated with high performance, resilience, and success. Yet elite sport also reveals a darker dimension to these ideals, particularly during periods of transition, when athletes may become especially vulnerable to psychological distress. This project examines these experiences through the philosophical concept of liminality and the notion of the “limit-situation.”The project aims to develop a philosophical account of the existential tensions that emerge in limit-situations—moments of crisis in which individuals are confronted with their fundamental existential vulnerability. Such situations can be profoundly difficult to navigate and may significantly shape experiences of psychological suffering.Within elite sport, limit-situations may arise through retirement, serious injury, prolonged failure, loss of identity, or other major disruptions to an athlete’s career and self-understanding. The project hypothesizes that the intense ambition and dedication characteristic of elite sport can deepen the difficulty of navigating these liminal experiences, thereby increasing vulnerability to psychological distress.
Project Description
The project adopts an existential-phenomenological approach aimed at understanding the fundamental structures of lived experience. By applying this framework to the domain of elite sport, the project investigates:
- How existential vulnerability manifests within elite sport.
- How experiences of existential vulnerability are lived, interpreted, and managed by elite athletes.
- What elite sport, as a microcosm of human striving and performance culture, can reveal about the human condition and the existential challenges characteristic of contemporary high-performance societies more broadly.
