As the 2024 Olympic Games approach, the Ministry of Higher Education has undertaken to improve the reception and support of high-level sports students. Solène Lefebvre, doctoral student at the University of Grenoble Alpes, who is currently writing a thesis on their mental health, and Sandrine Isoard, lecturer in social psychology of health and physical activity, explain the “conflict” that these students experience to arbitrate between the demands of their two careers.
Why do some top athletes reconcile competition and studies?
SL: For many, this is a way of preparing for the future and anticipating their retraining because sports careers end relatively early in life. For others, who receive little or no funding as professional athletes, this responds to an immediate need to train to ensure their professional future alongside their sport. Finally, many athletes do not want to “let go” of studies to maintain a good balance in life, to have a decompression chamber vis-à-vis a sport that is a source of pressure and stress.
Our work focuses on the mental health of these students who must carry out a sports project and an academic project in parallel. A double role, a source of both enrichment, whether in the direction of studies towards sport and vice versa, but also of conflict.
To what extent can sports and studies conflict?
SL: Most of the athletes interviewed mentioned an organizational challenge, first in terms of time. Lessons, training, reviews, competitions, etc. : they have the impression of having to “play Tetris” in their agenda, to use their words. Regularly, one of the activities encroaches on the other, creating conflicts that we compare to those existing between professional activity and family life: should I rest before this competition or revise? Can I do without this training to go to class? Etc.
Their time is a limited resource, as are their energy and resistance to stress, the latter of which is likely to be transmitted from one activity to another, with an impact on performance. The conflict may also be related to different expectations in each of the activities. The athlete must, for example, methodically apply what is recommended to him, while conversely he must show great autonomy in his studies… Reconciling studies and high-level sport can be a source of well-being or mental suffering.
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