When the final whistle blows: Managing social identities to facilitate elite athletes’ transition to retirement

There is increasing concern about promoting and protecting athletes’ health and wellbeing, not only during their career, but also into their retirement. Many athletes nevertheless experience considerable challenges in adjusting to retirement, indicating that current strategies are not sufficient. While existing literature acknowledges the detrimental impact that personal identity loss as athlete has on retirement adjustment, what is absent is an understanding of the role of an athlete’s wider group memberships and associated social identities. In particular because the loss of athletic identity cannot be avoided in the transition to retirement, athletes’ wider social identities (both within and outside the sporting arena) offer an important means to support their adjustment to sport retirement. However, to harness these social identities effectively, we must understand how they influence the retirement transition. Therefore, in a first step, we provide a novel, theoretically derived analysis of adjustment to sport retirement as a process of social identity change. Second, we test the efficacy of an intervention program, supporting this process of social planning and identity reconstruction at this vulnerable point in athletes’ lives.