From “being a pro” to becoming a professional: Variability of discourses, practices, and resources within the French athletic elite

The purpose of this article is to examine the plurality of representations associated with “professionalism” among elite athletes as well as the diversity of paths and configurations that lead to it. By drawing upon the polysemy of this term, both in the indigenous language and in the sociological vocabulary, the aim is to shed new light on the construction of high-level sports careers. To do so, we rely on a qualitative survey conducted by semi-structured interviews with thirty athletes belonging to the contemporary French athletic elite (selected at least several times in international competition). Taking as a field of investigation a sporting activity whose practice at the highest level relies on a profoundly unequal international market that allows some to make a living from it, sometimes very comfortably, while generating precarity and instability for others, we show that the way in which athletes define themselves (or not) as “professionals” must be considered in relation to their objective position in the sporting career and the subjective relationship they have with it. We then analyze the drivers of their professionalizations by studying the way in which configurations act as resources or constraints depending on the combination of individual, dispositional, and institutional factors.