The current COVID-19 pandemic has affected the entire globe, including the world of high-performance sports. Accordingly, it has been widely assumed that the thereby caused postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games could have negative psychological impacts for aspirants, since they were halted abruptly in the pursuit of their Olympic endeavors and their daily lives drastically altered. Considering the sudden nature of the pandemic, few researchers, if any, have yet scrutinized the individual experience of Olympic aspirants. This qualitative study examines the subjective perceptions of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games postponement among Austrian Olympic athletes and coaches. To this end, 21 Austrian athletes (13 male, 8 female; mean age = 26.67 ± 4.93 years) and six male coaches were recruited through a criterion-based purposive sampling strategy. Five athletes had already qualified for the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020 and 15 athletes were still in an ongoing qualification process. Data was collected by means of short written statements, elicited via open-format questions on an anonymous online survey platform. In order to infer meaning from the text, a qualitative content analysis with an interpretative focus was conducted inductively, which allowed for deriving alternative explanations of findings. The results support the notion that the Olympic postponement was experienced in myriad ways by affected participants. Three general themes comprised of several meaning units of different levels of abstraction were created from the text data. Many respondents experienced an immediate emotional reaction to the postponement characterized by confusion, disappointment and/or relief. Participants associated multiple consequences with the postponement, such as the prolongation of physical and psychological pressure, a lack of motivation, concerns about future performance, living and their occupational career, but also the opportunity for performance improvement and recovery. Respondents displayed various coping strategies, such as distancing themselves from sports, cognitive reframing, appealing for acceptance, and planning behavior. This study gleans first insights into the idiosyncratic experience of the Olympic Games 2020 postponement among Austrian aspirants. The findings could serve to assist sport psychologists in their applied practice by informing them about athletes’ and coaches’ needs in their Olympic preparation during the ongoing pandemic.

Empirical research which aims to investigate elite sport from a holistic perspective (Magnusson & Stattin, 2006; Wylleman, 2019) is necessary to inform the ethical discussions surrounding issues such as performance and optimization. This symposium, therefore, intends to capture the complex trajectories of athlete’s lived experience from multiple angles and disciplines within the area of sport science. Starting from a psychological understanding, Philip Röthlin will introduce the prevalence of mental health disorders among Swiss elite athletes along with relevant contributing factors such as need satisfaction and organizational support. Colm Hickey will unearth how professional elite athletes are affected by abuse disguised as jokes in their daily lives from a sociological perspective. Helena Hlasová will explore retirement from elite sport through the lens of Dialogical Self Theory (Hermans & Kempen, 1993) and uncover the implicit ways in which elite athletes may or may not engage in “identity work” while transitioning out of their careers. Finally, Violetta Oblinger-Peters will present on how Olympic athletes find and create personal meaning(s) in their sport and discuss how the scientific concept translates into tangible support for athletes. Overall, the symposium intends to generate transferable knowledge of athletes’ lived reality in elite sport. References Hermans, H. J. M., & Kempen, H. J. G. (1993). The dialogical self: Meaning as movement. Academic Press. Magnusson, D., & Stattin, H. (2006). The person in context: A holistic-interactionistic approach. In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 400–464). Wiley. Wylleman, P., Reints, A., & De Knop, P. (2013). A developmental and holistic perspective on athletic career development. In P. Sotiriadou & V. De Bosscher (Eds.), Managing high performance sport (pp. 159–182). Routledge.

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Recently, (Olympic) athletes’ mental health and well-being have become the hot topic in sport psychology. Empirical evidence on athletes’ poor mental health and reduced well-being in the context of the Olympic Games (Küttel & Larsen, 2020; Reardon et al., 2019) is complemented by anecdotal accounts of famous competitors (e.g., multiple Olympic medalist Simone Biles at the Tokyo 2022 Olympic Games). While the recognition that these topics need to be addressed is shared within the wider sport psychology community, the growing body of research has led to the adoption of diverse theoretical perspectives on mental health and well-being in elite sport (Lundqvist & Andersson, 2021). Surprisingly, a “flagship indicator of well-being” (Steger et al., 2013), namely meaning in life, has thus far escaped scholarly attention in the context of elite sport to a large extent (Luzzeri & Chow, 2020). This gap in knowledge is unfortunate, since athletes seem to become attuned to fundamental questions such as meaning and purpose in sport and life more broadly at critical moments in their career (Ronkainen & Nesti, 2019). One potentially critical moment when athletes talk about feeling lost and void and lacking a sense of direction is encountered upon the return from the Olympic Games, during the post-Olympic phase. Even though existential themes of meaning and purpose have been discussed by scholars and addressed by practitioners within the area of sport psychology (Nesti, 2004; Porter et al., 2021), a more nuanced understanding of how Olympic athletes define meaning and purpose in their sport and life more broadly is missing to date. The study therefore seeks to examine empirically how Olympic athletes experience meaning and purpose by addressing these themes during the post-Olympic phase. To this end, semi-structured interviews with 13 international Olympic athletes were conducted online after their participation at the Beijing Winter Games 2022. Interviews lasted 55 minutes on average and were thematically analysed. The presentation will offer preliminary results of the analysis and elucidate, for example, on how the Olympians perceive goals as subordinate to their personal meaning and purpose in sport. Athletes in the study varied in the degree to which they engaged in various and diverse sources of meaning. This enabled some to realise multiple identities (Thoits, 2003) and to story themselves multidimensionally, while others drew exclusively on achievement-oriented types of meaning and performance-based narratives (Douglas & Carless, 2015). Critical moments in participants’ careers (e.g., injury, the pandemic, previous post-Olympic phases, and medaling at the Olympic Games) led to an existential crisis in some cases, resulting in deeper reflections on the relationship they hold with their sport. By providing insights into the lived experience of meaning and purpose in (Olympic) athletes’ lives, the study seeks to contribute fruitful ideas on how to promote athletes’ well-being and mental health in high performance contexts. Ultimately, a more layered understanding of the concept of (existential) meaning and purpose can serve to inform the applied practice in sport psychology. References Douglas, K., & Carless, D. (2015). Life story research in sport: Understanding the experiences of elite and professional athletes through narrative. Routledge. Kuettel, A., & Larsen, C. H. (2020). Risk and protective factors for mental health in elite athletes: A scoping review. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 13(1), 231–265. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750984X.2019.1689574 Lundqvist, C., & Andersson, G. (2021). Let’s talk about mental health and mental disorders in elite sports: A narrative review of theoretical perspectives. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 700829. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.700829 Luzzeri, M., & Chow, G. M. (2020). Presence and search for meaning in sport: Initial construct validation. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 51, Article 101783. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2020.101783 Nesti, M. (2004). Existential psychology and sport: Theory and application. Routledge. Porter, S., Ronkainen, N. J., Sille, R., & Eubank, M. (2021). An existential counseling case study: Navigating several critical moments with a professional football player. Case Studies in Sport and Exercise Psychology, 5(1), 106–113. https://doi.org/10.1123/cssep.2021-0013 Reardon, C. L., Hainline, B., Miller Aron, C., Baron, D., Baum, A. L., Bindra, A., Budgett, R., Campriani, N., Castaldelli-Maia, J. M., Currie, A., Derevensky, J. L., Glick, I. D., Gorczynski, P., Gouttebarge, V., Grandner, M. A., Han, D. H., McDuff, D., Mountjoy, M., Polat, A., Purcell, R. . . . Engebretsen, L. (2019). Mental health in elite athletes: International Olympic Committee consensus statement. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 53(11), 667–699. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2019-100715 Ronkainen, N. J., & Nesti, M. S. (2019). Meaning and spirituality in sport and exercise: Psychological perspectives. Routledge. Steger, M. F., Shin, J. Y., Shim, Y., & Fitch-Martin, A. (2013). Is meaning in life a flagship indicator of well-being? In A. Waterman (Ed.), The best within us: Positive psychology perspectives on eudaimonia (pp. 159–182). APA Press. Thoits, P. A. (2003). Personal agency in the accumulation of multiple role-identities. In P. J. Burke, T. J. Owens, R. Serpe & P. A. Thoits (Eds.), Advances in identity theory and research (pp. 179–194). Kluwer Academic, Plenum.