ABSTRACT
There is not a developed philosophical literature on pain and suffering in sport.1 Jeff Fry (2002) recently published a very insightful overview of the theodicy of pain and suffering as it applies (and where it does not apply) to sports. In sports anthropology, David Howe (2004) has catalogued the habitus of injury-acceptance as part and parcel of the practices that are elite sport. Neither Fry nor Howe, however, directs attention significantly to the relations between the two concepts. What I shall do in this section is to set out some analytical remarks concerning the two concepts – and only hint at the
theological similarities and dissimilarities in an attempt to enquire as to whether a consideration of suffering might have something interesting to say about the nature and purposes of sport, and the sportspersons’ emotional components seen as part of the living of a good life.
