Men at the Start and in the Finish: Negotiating Masculinity and Age through the Example of Athletes

Racing and competing are domains associated with youth and masculinity. We generally do not associate sports and sports competition with older age. Moreover, in top-level sports, a person becomes “old” a few decades earlier than we generally understand older age. At the same time, many sports are expanding the opportunities for participation at older ages in disciplines primarily designed for the young rather than disciplines explicitly created for older people. In the master categories of the races, the predominance of male participation is high.

In my presentation, I look at racing and sports competitions as a specific area where age and older age are negotiated and viewed through a different lens than usual. I observe how this sporting optic of age interferes with and adjusts the ageing coping of athletes and their perception of themselves as (pre-)older people. And how masculinity is conceptualised in this context. To do so, I use data from in-depth interviews with men (aged 50-75) who participate in competitions in different sports disciplines as a part of the project Institutions of Ageing Men (GA23-05047S). My sample is heterogeneous regarding the participants' sports biographies and motivations for participating in competitions, but sport seems to bring about a different perception of age identity. I discuss this specific lifestyle in the context of notions of 'successful' ageing and pressure on older people's productivity.