Sport is a way of improving mental health and socialising. It enables people who have less interaction to have some. The collective spirit of the sporting group can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. Sport allows a degree of emancipation and can be a place for socialising and sharing. Regular activity creates a routine and a common interest that brings people together.
However, despite the team and collective spirit that helps create a sense of belonging, there are limits. Competition and the desire to win at all costs can exclude certain members of the group, who will feel devalued. Taking my personal experience as an example, having competed in athletics for several years, I experienced this feeling of 'not good enough'. I was very well surrounded and followed by good coaches, and the youth team was supportive and respectful. I learnt good values in this environment. However, the stress of competition became more and more present and I met people who scared me and totally distorted my vision of sport. It was after the French championships that I stopped athletics because I was disgusted with the way it had been organised. The values of sport that I knew were not present and certain coaches and athletes had intimidated me and made me lose all confidence in myself. To sum up, sport is clearly a factor in integration and helps to strengthen social ties, but taken to extremes and in the competitive aspect, it can create the opposite effect and contribute to a kind of exclusion.
Marie Drevillon
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