Resistance and Empowerment through Leisure: The Meaning of Competitive Sport Participation to Older Adults

It is well established that the developed world’s population is aging. This trend has influenced increased scholarly and media interest into the benefits of leisure, sport and physical activity in later life, as well as an explosion of sporting events for mature athletes. However, the lack of qualitative research pertaining to older peoples’ experiences in competitive sport is surprising. The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to present the qualitative findings of a study that explores the meaning of competitive sport participation to a group of older adults, and second, to examine their meanings within a broader socio-cultural context. Data were collected through participant-observation and semi-structured interviews with competitors (aged 55 to 94 years) at the 8th Australian Masters Games in 20013. The findings were analyzed using strategies consistent with both constant comparative and thematic analyses. The three major themes emerging from the data suggest that competitive sport provides a leisure context for older people to resist the negative factors associated with older age at the individual, interpersonal or shared level, and gain a sense of personal empowerment, regardless of their motive for participation.