Sensibilisation au dopage dans le sport

construction de sens et (dés)engagement moral des parents d’athlètes

Abstract

This study analyzes the role of parents of elite athletes in anti-doping efforts and how they construct its meaning. It draws on twenty-five semi-structured interviews with Canadian athletes’ parents, supplemented by ten exploratory meetings with stakeholders in the sports sector. Guided by a sensemaking approach, the study highlights a tension between performance demands and the preservation of athletes’ well-being, as well as four parental tactics: pressure, withdrawal, vigilance, and conciliation. These tactics emerge in critical moments and are accompanied by discourses oscillating between moral engagement and disengagement, therefore contributing to conditions of vulnerability to doping. By showing that parents–often marginalized in preventive initiatives–construct their role based on concerns largely unrelated to doping, this research gives insight on the role of intermediary actors whose influence is decisive yet underutilized in the design of preventive communication strategies.