Speakers
Description
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted in different ways the professional sports world, which stopped its events for a certain period. Nevertheless, lockdowns were heterogeneous, and each type of sport had to adapt to a new reality regulated by the virus. If risk management has always been a preoccupation for sports mega-events, they have, since the COVID-19 pandemic, focused mainly on global health risk management. Inspired by the theoretical framework proposed by Beck’s sociology of risk (1992), our presentation will focus on understanding how the pandemic risk of COVID-19 is concretely managed by sports international federations. To answer this question, we carried out an ethnographic study based on four international federations: International Judo Federation, World Athletics, Union Cycliste Internationale and International Federation of Association Football. Within each of these sports, we interviewed a selected number of international athletes, medical officers, representatives of athletes’ commissions, and event organizers through semi-structured interviews. In addition, we attended several events organized by these institutions where we adopted a posture of observation. Our results show that while each sport has implemented their own COVID-19 countermeasures, a transfer during the pandemic has occurred: 1) in risk management from a global level to a local level; 2) of responsibility from international federations to local event organizers as well as athletes and their entourage who have to implement COVID-19 protocols. This transfer of a macro-institutional risk to a set of micro-risks relating to the actors seems characteristic of the management of Sport Mega-Events during this pandemic.
