Facilitating and supporting the elite athlete-to-coach transition: Lessons learned from Norwegian coaches and federations

Abstract

Elite athletic career termination is inevitable in high performance sport. Whether due to interest, injury, age or combination of factors, athletes will undergo a shift in their professional and personal identity. While retirement out of sport has been scrutinized to both understand and support athletes, we have not thought through what the athlete-to-coach, within-sport retirement, signifies for the person undergoing it and for our applied practice and lack the approach(es) for supporting it. Based on recent research advances, we build on a range of resources to be developed in supporting athletes during the transition and in the coaching profession.