ABSTRACT
This chapter explores success stories among elite and Olympic athletes, to establish whether alternative ways of conceptualising success are possible for high-achieving elite sportspeople. Both researchers collaborated in a two-stage processes of analysis and interpretation, incorporating different narrative analytical approaches suited to the purpose of this study. Douglas has explored the ways that cultural pressures within sport culture can lead to young sportspeople. To characterise the move from initial participation to elite competition, scholars in recent years have suggested young performers move from experiencing sport as 'play' to specialisation and mastery where sport becomes 'work'. David Carless is a Reader in Narrative Psychology in the Carnegie Research Institute at Leeds Metropolitan University. His research-which lies at an intersection of psychology, sociology, and the arts-draws on narrative and arts-based methods to explore identity and mental health in sport and physical activity contexts.
