Highland Games as serious leisure: becoming a Masters athlete
ABSTRACT In a context of successful ageing discourse, a growing number of older adults are turning to competitive sport. The phenomenon known as Masters sport is a form of serious leisure that challenges stereotypes of ageing. Contemporary research has explored how individuals become Masters athletes in a variety of sports, focusing upon on the mainstream sports of running, swimming and tennis. Research has yet to explore how people become involved in activities that have less universal appeal. This article begins filling this gap by examining how Masters athletes became involved in the Highland Games, a sport contextualised by its links to Scotland and its diaspora. A pragmatic theoretical approach lending from three existing models is used to make sense of how people enter the Games. Drawing on semi-structured life history interviews with 19 Masters athletes, this case study details two pathways to the Highland Games. The article describes how, unlike previous research, most athletes enter the sport later in life and are either drawn to competition through an emergent identification with Scotland or a diversification of bodily dispositions that existed before Games participation. The article concludes that theoretical flexibility is required to understand better the socio-cultural factors that influence Masters sport participation.