Elite Distance Runners and their Management: The State and Nature of Athlete Managers Contribution

Abstract

Athlete managers are becoming crucial in facilitating competition opportunities and providing various forms of support to athletes, including technical support related to training, logistical support for training and competition materials, and social support encompassing psychological and life skill assistance. Ethiopian distance runners dedicate significant time and energy to excel in their chosen athletic discipline; in doing so, they prefer to work with athlete managers. To this end, this particular study aimed to assess the state and nature of athlete managers contribution to Ethiopian distance runners participating in elite level by employing concurrent-mixed method. The study was conducted in Addis Ababa, involving a sample of 248 athletes. 60.9% of the respondents were men, and 31% were female elite athletes, with the majority enrolled in long-distance running (68.9%) and government-owned clubs (69%). A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was developed and used to collect quantitative data from athletes, and a semi-structured interview was employed to purposively selected athletes, coaches, and officials from the Ethiopian Athletics Federation for the qualitative data. Statistical package for social science version 27 (SPSS27) statistical tools were used to process the collected data. For the descriptive statistics, frequency and percentage were used, and non-parametric tests, specifically the Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests, were employed to assess the group difference. The internal consistency for the sub-themes of technical, logistic, and social supports was found to be 0.90 ≤ α ≥ 0.70. The findings of the study indicated that club setting and running discipline of an athlete significantly influence the support athletes get from their athlete managers; consequently, logistic support and technical support were found to be significantly favored at the expense of social support. Dealing with athlete managers helps athletes get scientific training access and international race opportunities; however, early specialization and overused injury are threats. Hence, emphasis should be given to all aspects of support to help an athlete become fruitful and remain successful.