Making Sense of Changes in Sports Practices Brought About by the Pandemic

Abstract

This chapter explores different impacts that the pandemic has had on athletes from bodybuilding, aikido, and squash practices in Colombia. It seeks to analyze the effects produced by the COVID-19 crisis and the response actions, seeking a structure that allows for the understanding of changes in sports practices as individual adaptation to the new conditions caused by the pandemic. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted to establish a baseline of sports habits and to investigate the effects on motivations, routines, times, spaces, and perspectives of the athletes. After describing the methodology, the main findings are presented. The diversity of the responses was used to construct categories of analysis which, as an added value, allow for the grouping of heterogeneous positions, which were then divided into (1) adjustments, (2) adaptability, and (3) the negotiation of meaning. Finally, conclusions are presented.