Discursive barriers to Wushu's Olympic inclusion: Between tradition and global sport standards

As the Olympic Games function not only as a global sporting event but also as a powerful system of institutional governance, inclusion in the Olympic programme has become a key marker of international legitimacy for sports. This article examines the discursive barriers to the Olympic inclusion of Wushu by analysing how key stakeholders interpret and negotiate Olympic standards within global sport governance. Drawing on a constructivist grounded theory approach and informed by neo-institutionalism and Foucauldian perspectives, the article analyses in-depth interviews with 58 stakeholders, including officials, referees, coaches and athletes from 27 countries. Three core categories are identified: institutional pluralism and governance fragmentation; tensions between standardised discourse and local practices; and dilemmas in legitimacy construction. The findings show that Wushu's Olympic exclusion is not primarily the result of technical insufficiency or organisational weakness but emerges from a multi-layered discursive structure in which fragmented governance generates divergent interpretations of Olympic standards, culturally embedded knowledge conflicts with technocratic standardisation and competing narratives undermine coherent institutional legitimacy. By foregrounding discourse as a central mechanism of institutional access, the study contributes to sociological debates on cultural politics, legitimacy and the integration of non-Western practices within Western-centric global sport governance systems.