Competitive involvement of young long-distance runners aged 17 to 29: Becoming a role model champion

This article seeks to analyze the extent to which the absence of a role model in coastal walking—an emerging activity developed by the French Hiking Federation (FFR)—encourages young people to participate in this sport, which is predominantly practiced by people over the age of 60. A qualitative analysis based on semi-structured interviews (n=5) with young participants with different characteristics and backgrounds allowed us to demonstrate that, for all the young people interviewed, traditional factors such as parental influence, but also, more unusually, health-related reasons, are the primary motivations for young people’s engagement in this type of activity. In hindsight, the desire to become a “champion role model” becomes the driving force for thriving in this sport.

Several studies highlight the influence of parents on athletes’ competitive careers and on the development of a “sporting vocation” (Dale Huisner & Frensh, 1994; Coté, 1999; Durand-Bush & Salmela, 2002). In their work on the elite sports environment, Forté and Mennesson (2012) suggest that athletes tend to take up the same sport as their parents, highlighting the role of socialization and family influence in the choice of a sports career. Thus, children’s involvement in a sports club is often, at first, driven by their parents. Children often travel with their parents, which allows them to watch their parents practice or attend sporting events together. This is likely to spark children’s curiosity about sports clubs (Le Pogam, 1979; Delbecque, 1979; Louveau, 1980).

Although cultural and social contexts may influence participation in sports, sports for young people extend beyond the family sphere. Alderman (1978) and Alderman and Wood (1976), as well as Lafabregue (2001), show that athletic success is one of the key factors determining whether a young person continues with a sport or gives it up. According to Lemonnier (2013), this athletic success is often marked by young athletes identifying with champions. Many young people take to the track and field, soccer stadiums, and podiums because they identify with their champions, whom they view as role models and a source of athletic excellence. “These adolescents become overly invested in sports, both in their reading and in their conversations, living vicariously through the champion’s life” (Ibid., 2013, p. 93).

Moreover, the athletic role model is often crowned with a podium finish (champion), accompanied by admiration and a demeanor that charms fans, because a champion only becomes a role model for others once the public cheers him on, identifies with him, and sees themselves in him. “The cult of the champion has become, thanks to the mass media and the sports press, a veritable industry” (Brohm, 1995, p. 112).

But what about emerging sports? Indeed, studies focusing on the development of a sporting vocation do not provide a clear picture of how young people’s competitive involvement takes shape in emerging activities such as longe côte—a sport invented in 2004, practiced mainly by seniors, and which does not yet serve as a benchmark in the sporting world. Furthermore, the standards of athletic success in this activity seem different from those found in traditionally established sports. All of this leads us to ask the following questions: How can we explain why young people engage in competition in the absence of prominent champion walkers? How are standards of athletic success defined in a sport lacking a role model? How do young coastal walkers manage to identify with a role model? Will they create the role model? How would this differ from those already existing in traditional sports?
In this article, we will attempt to explore these questions, highlighting the reasons why young people engage in coastal walking competitions.

Beach walking: origins and prospects

Longe côte, a sport that involves walking in the sea with water up to chest level—with or without a paddle—made its debut on the coast of Dunkirk in 2005 thanks to rowing coach Thomas Wallyn. He believed this activity would help relieve his athletes, who were undergoing intensive training and suffering from muscular imbalances. He considers longe côte to be a complementary sport that is low-impact since it is practiced in the water.

This activity quickly became a huge success; more and more people outside the rowing community began taking up longe côte. The association “Les Sentiers Bleus,” founded in 2009, aimed to help establish consistency in the development strategies of clubs offering longe côte. This initial push for development led in 2012 to an agreement with the French Hiking Federation (FFR), which wished to take the activity under its wing. Since 2013, the management and development of the sport has been officially entrusted by the Ministry of Sports to the FFR. Thus, by definition, longe côte is a form of aquatic hiking, hence its other name, “aquatic walking.” The^FFR2 guide states: “This is a walking activity […], and, in principle, it falls under the discipline of hiking.”

According to a survey by the FFR (Venot, 2015), the sport—which is intended primarily as a complementary activity for elite athletes—has gained significant popularity. As of 2019, there were more than 11,000 practitioners across 120 clubs in France. The activity is geared more toward health and wellness, with a predominantly older demographic, largely due to its affiliation with the FFR. Indeed, according to Burlot and Lefèvre (2009), more than half of hikers fall into the “senior” category: 46% of those aged 50–64 and 52% of those aged 65 and older. Thus, the hiking community likely influences the profile of longe côte practitioners. A survey conducted among 600 longe côte practitioners in the Hérault region in 2019 shows an overwhelming majority in the senior age group: 68% are over 60 and 92% are over 50. Sixty percent of them discovered the activity through their hiking club (Ricciardi & Le Roux, 2019, p. 24).

On the other hand, this activity is not widely practiced by young people. The estimated average age of current members in clubs affiliated with the FFR is 60 (FFR, 2015). This explains the desire among various stakeholders in the coastal walking community to promote the sport among young people with the aim of expanding the activity and attracting new audiences. In this regard, during our internship in 2019*, we observed that the majority of young people we met were concentrated primarily in two clubs**. The emergence of young people in these clubs is intrinsically linked to the rise of a competitive approach. Indeed, since the establishment of the French championship dedicated to this sport in 2015, an age group ranging from 17 to 29 has emerged in this field across two categories: Junior (16–19 years old) and Senior (20–39 years old). The number of participants has increased modestly since the first national championship was held; 15 young people participated in the 5th French Longe Côte Championship in 2019***. This trend is also evident internationally, as a delegation of young French longeurs participated in the Mediterranean Beach Games in Patras, Greece, in August 2019. This leads us to conclude that there is a link between young people’s involvement in longe côte and the competitive aspect of the sport.

Commitment and Athletic Success

As we have already noted, involvement in sports does not depend solely on the family environment; it is influenced by other factors. Lafabergue explains that “athletic aptitudes are developed through the interactions that young people establish with others” (Ibid., 2001, p. 81). He adds: “The longevity of a passion for sports depends on each individual’s ability to satisfy, within the club, their desire for self-affirmation and social recognition through two distinct relational dynamics: that of athletic success through performance and that of personal fulfillment through camaraderie” (Ibid.).

It can therefore be argued that commitment to and participation in a sport are linked to “non-family” considerations such as athletic success. Moreover, athletic success often manifests itself through pushing one’s limits and achieving outstanding performances. According to Lemonnier, it is the champion who embodies athletic success. “Perceived as embodying iconic qualities, the champion becomes the benchmark for all athletic success” (2013, p. 91). Moreover, it is established that the elite athlete represents the athletic model—in this case, the champion—because they epitomize performance and pushing one’s limits. “Elite athletes seek to achieve the perfect theoretical model […], the supreme image performing the perfect movement” (Brohm, 1995, p. 215). Thus , the athletic model is produced through an interaction between the elite athlete and the system in which they operate, known as “the elite pathway” (Brohm, 1995). Consequently, the athlete’s progression through this pathway fosters the acquisition of sporting standards of excellence by constructing the image of a champion to become the sporting norm.

Beyond building a career in sports, competing at the elite level requires a “highly demanding” commitment (Forté & Mennesson, 2012). For the athlete and their support network, the demands are enormous: daily training, balancing studies on the side, being away from family, injuries, poor performances, travel, and enduring repeated competitions, etc. The dream of standing on the podium and becoming a champion requires years of preparation and training. As Champignoux (1992) notes: “You must conquer through pain”—this could be the motto governing high-level athletic competition. “Winning easily” is “guilt-inducing” for the athlete who does not feel the pain and who imagines they have not pushed themselves to their limits. They must operate at what might be called a “limit state,” which they must display for all to see, especially since this mindset helps them find meaning in the suffering they endure to prevail. When they say, “I’m pushing myself to the limit,” they are actually expressing the pleasure they feel in seeking out more suffering in order to improve” (Champignoux, 1992, p. 109).

On the other hand, the nature of coastal walking means that even a casual participant can become a French champion. This is evident in the case of Yoann Coedel (35), the 2017 French champion in the senior category. In fact, during an exploratory interview, Yoann Coedel explained to me that he had no background as a professional athlete or in elite sports: He stated, “Actually, I’m here by chance!” Longe côte has given him the status of a champion, which is “very rewarding” ****.

Furthermore, this sport does not yet have the long-standing traditions found in soccer or swimming, for example; there are no prominent elite athletes representing it, nor are there any renowned coaches in the field. It therefore appears that there is not yet a champion to look up to in coastal walking, and that success in the sport depends on standards that differ from those found in other sports.

With this in mind, this article seeks to analyze the extent to which the very absence of a champion role model in this sport is likely to influence young people’s participation in competition. One might hypothesize that young people will participate in part because they hope to become the “role model champion” themselves.

Fieldwork and survey

The survey focused on young long-distance runners across France and was conducted in 2019. Our sample was selected based on several criteria: age, gender, and level of participation.

To analyze the reasons behind these young people’s involvement in longe côte, we conducted five semi-structured interviews with young longeurs. Two additional interviews were conducted with two young elite athletes in swimming and catamaran sailing. The analysis of these last two interviews primarily provided comparative benchmarks for longe côte, given that these disciplines have a long competitive tradition with universally recognized role models: Michael Phelps in swimming, and Billy Besson and Marie Riou in catamaran sailing.

The training guide was organized around four themes: prior athletic experience, attitude toward coastal walking, attitude toward competition, and the champion model.

The interviews were conducted between April and June 2019. Although they provided a wealth of information, the number of respondents remains fairly small. Out of several thousand long-distance runners across France, there are in fact only a handful of young people, all of whom belong to two clubs located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. This made some interviews difficult to conduct. Distance and remoteness became the main constraints in selecting the long-distance runners.

In fact, during my first-year master’s internship, I had the opportunity to meet various stakeholders in the “longe côte” community during a trip to the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. During this trip, I was able to conduct two interviews with young people from the Alison Wave club. The meeting was not scheduled in advance. Two other interviews were conducted via Skype due to the geographical distance. The two interviewees live in Brittany and the Hauts-de-France region, respectively, which made it difficult to meet in person. The rest of the interviews all took place in Montpellier.

In general, the use of virtual interviews via Skype is becoming increasingly common in sociological research. According to Anne-Sophie and Baptiste , “The development of the internet since the 1990s and its rapid integration into the daily lives of many individuals and social spaces make this tool indispensable for conducting a great many social science studies, regardless of the research topic ” (Anne-Sophie & Baptiste, 2012). Thus, it seems to us that this tool does not pose an obstacle to conducting interviews under the most favorable conditions.

Although the number of interviews was limited, they yielded a wealth of information. In order to analyze them effectively, we employed a categorical analysis. “Through categorization, we gain a practical method for processing raw data” (Negura, 2006, p. 11).

Analysis of Access to Lunge Work

In all the cases studied, the young coastal walkers started with other sports before taking up coastal walking. Analysis of the interviews revealed that their participation in sports prior to coastal walking was more or less irregular. Only one person remained committed to their sport for 12 years. A total of three people changed or stopped their main sport due to health issues. For example, Liza states:

“[…], I stopped doing judo, I had surgery, and that’s it […]. As for my knee […]—that’s why I took up coastal walking.”“[…], actually, I had back problems, and since I stopped playing rugby[…], I didn’t have those pains when I started coastal walking.”

People have also come to try longe côte in various ways; in fact, three of them were directly influenced by family members (mother, grandfather, sister, brother). Jeff tells us:

“At first, it was Grandpa who did the walking; he ended up becoming the club president. […]. He’d tell me, ‘You just have to give it a try it’s a promising sport,’ and that’s how I got into it little by little, and here I am!”

Most of the respondents’ parents are champions themselves. In total, three parents are involved in beach walking (a mother and a grandfather), and the fourth person’s mother is a swimming champion. Notably, the fifth person cites his mother’s illness as a source of motivation and the fact that she was able to cope with it “thanks to beach walking.” Adrien:

“[…], it was my mother who inspired me, but it was because of her story—her history with sports—and how she overcame illness…".

Health-related reasons thus consistently emerge as factors influencing the choice of this activity. Three participants reported that health issues had altered their athletic paths in favor of power walking. Interestingly, health reasons also influenced their parents’ decision to take up the same activity. Of the five interviews, three young people confirm that their parents (mother, grandfather) chose coastal walking for health reasons. It thus appears that the decision to take up coastal walking is primarily driven by the onset of a medical condition. But why do these young people participate in competitions, and what do they gain from it?

From long-distance runner to champion

Young coastal walkers have a particularly unique relationship with competition. In fact, what first caught our attention was the observation that, of the five people interviewed, four are already French champions even though they only began coastal walking in 2015. It would seem that this aspect is a key factor for the rest of our analysis. Even more intriguing is that the four champion longeurs claim their first appearance in the French championship ended with a first-place finish. Blandine states : “[…] because that year [2015] I finished as French champion.” Similarly, Jeff recounts :

"Yes, exactly, two-time champion in my very first competition, yes!”

In fact, most of the young people we met are indeed the first champions in the history of longe côte in their respective categories. Blandine confirms this :

"Ouch, but it's true nationwide, I’m the only "Yes!"

Based on the data we gathered from interviews with the two young elite athletes in swimming and catamaran sailing, we can conclude that competitive involvement in other sports requires such a significant commitment (meticulous planning) that it has led them to isolate themselves from the outside world. For example, Sandra stated:

"[…], I don't go out, I know anyone […] Before, I have to think about swimming, school, swimming—nothing but training.”

The same goes for Nadal :

"[…], in the […] community, there are a lot of sacrifices […], in fact you have very few friends, and the sailing crowd doesn't really parties …".

On the other hand, taking up coastal running doesn’t require a “highly demanding” commitment or years of training, which can encourage participants to enter competitions. Tristan and Blandine say :

“We couldn’t train at all before the French Championships—we couldn’t train at all […]. In the afternoon, we won the 1,000-meter race (laughs), so it really was a huge surprise! I watched the results four times—oh, okay! We’re in first place.”

"In the end, we were competing in the French championship, but we were going to entirely on a whim; we weren’t prepared.”

So, we distinguish between two approaches to competition: the traditional competitive approach, which requires a “highly demanding” commitment—one in which the commitment becomes almost a calling, a lifestyle that necessitates meticulous organization of every aspect of the athlete’s life. In contrast, for long-distance swimmers, competing—and even becoming a champion—does not, for the time being, entail the same level of commitment.

Toward the Development of the Length Model

There is unanimous agreement that there is no single role model. However, what is evident in the respondents’ answers is that, in hindsight, they talk about the people who inspire them without specifically mentioning a particular athlete. Take André, for example:

“Well, personally, I won’t lie to you— personally, no one—there’s no one. Maybe my mom, just my mom, who inspires me, but that’s because of her story, her past with sports, overcoming illness—that’s all that.”

Tristan and Blandine approach the subject in a fairly similar way, given that it is a work in progress:

“[…], coastal running is a fairly new sport; we don’t have any role models because we don’t world championships yet, we don’t have the Olympics yet, or global stars, you know…”

Since they view coastal walking as a new activity, the respondents agree that there is no single model for it. Liza even mentions this with a touch of sarcasm, saying that it’s too early to talk about it :

"No, not at all—in the Longe Côte, it's not (laughs) on the contrary, it’s a sport that’s evolving.”

The long-distance runners we interviewed say that to become a role model, one must achieve international recognition by winning races—a goal sought by most of those we spoke with. As for Tristan:

"A model, hmm, well, if I can make it big on the international stage!"

Adrien adds in the same vein:

“My goal is crystal clear: it will be included in the Olympics! So, for now, it’s part of the Mediterranean Beach Games taking place in Patras, and ideally, it will become an Olympic sport.”

As for Tristan, he thinks that:

“The ultimate goal is to make it to the Olympics. If one day I see coastal walking in the Olympics and the courses are still the same… well, I was the one who started it all!”

This gap in the model could be the driving force behind young people's continued participation in coastal running; this is implied in their comments:

Jeff tells us :

"[...] By the time the next Mediterranean Games roll around, I’ll be 22, I think, and maybe I’ll be able to go for a title. […] With the growth of coastal walking, I could build a career, […] become French champion in the senior category and in several other categories.”

Blandine expresses her desire to become a role model:

“Ouch, finally a role model—ouch, but let’s just say there are people who look up to me! […] I’d love to be recognized as a top athlete in this sport. […] But I want to inspire other people like me through example—people who are afraid to try other sports despite their bodies being the way they are; they tell themselves, ‘Ouch, but in this sport, we can do it.”

For Adrien, the desire to be the model champion is more obvious:

“When I first started competing in longe côte, I told you it was good for me because it let me say, ‘Look, I got the best time,’ which is really rewarding. […], I won the Tunisian championship in one event, and I finished as champion on the podium in every event. So I was very proud of myself and I kept put in the effort.”

For Liza, the absence of a model serves as motivation to develop her practice

“Yes, I can’t wait to see it develop; I can’t wait for it to really reach a high level […]”

Moreover, the fact that most of them have been champions multiple times fuels their desire to go even further. Blandine puts it this way:

"Well, of course, as time goes on we'll start setting goals. When we knew we were going to keep getting podium finishes, which are pretty good, we wanted—like any athlete—to go to the .”

In summary, based on the results of this study, we can identify three dimensions that characterize the commitment of young long-distance runners: Their entry into the sport was primarily driven by identifying with parents who participated in the same activity, as well as by health issues. Competitive commitment, on the other hand, does not require a significant investment. The lack of a role model in the sport has meant that their commitment extends beyond athletic success marked by a championship to a desire to become a role model themselves.

In the following paragraphs, we will attempt to highlight these findings by drawing on existing knowledge in this area.

Discussion about a new champion profile

It would appear that parental influence plays a crucial role in the choice of sport. This is supported by the work of Bourdieu (1979, 1980) and Pociello (1981), who demonstrate the importance of social background and origin in influencing individuals’ choice of sports. We can also cite the finding by Baxter-Jones and Maffulli (2003) that parents play both an introductory and a supportive role.

Similarly, in competitive sports, the parent-athlete relationship plays a key role in an athlete’s career, according to the work of Durand-Bush & Salmela (2002) and Benchehida (2018). Furthermore, it turns out that some respondents are engaged in a deliberate manner. According to Lafabregue (2001), engagement is determined by events both within and outside the sports environment that can lead the athlete to alter their athletic trajectory. We can therefore assume that engagement in coastal walking relies heavily on physical conditions and is reinforced by the involvement of parents who participate in the same activity.

As already mentioned, most of the young people surveyed are indeed champions in longe côte, but not only that—they see themselves as pioneering champions in this sport. That is to say, there were no champions before them—no one with whom they could identify—as Brohm (1992) explains:“The champion is the best; he is the absolute benchmark (…) he is the model to aspire to; he is the sporting vanguard.” (Ibid., 1992, p. 341).

We can therefore say that the competitive involvement of young long-distance runners, marked by their status as champions, coincides with this lack of a champion role model in long-distance running. According to Bandura (1965), the role model is a source of information; it is already pre-established (either a real or symbolic model). This model will enable the achievement of a goal or the construction of a representation of the goal (Winnykammen, 1982, p. 25). At this stage, we can consider that young pioneering champions are in the process of constructing an identificatory model since none currently exists. If we apply the same premise to athletic success, we could say that athletic success and the champion are part of an interactive process through which athletic success produces a model and is realized through it. Thus, the athlete participates in the construction of the athletic standards defined by the institution to which they belong by serving as a benchmark champion. We can therefore conclude that the champion is a construct conceived by the athlete with the aim of building a sporting model that embodies athletic success by serving as a role model for others. At the same time, the athlete might develop new standards—"going beyond the model"—to create a new one. "The producer is his own product."

(Morain, 1990, p. 100). It is therefore possible to suggest that athletes, like champions, construct their own role models. In other words, the decision to pursue a career in sports is largely driven by identification with a role model embodied by “the champion.” Returning to what Bandura (1965) discusses, we are indeed witnessing a process of model construction in coastal hiking.

On the other hand, according to Lemonnier (2013), competition symbolizes the idea that all performance must and will be improved, and that champions have a unique relationship with pain and time that closely aligns with the proposed capitalist model (Ibid., 2013, p. 94). This competitive logic—balancing constraint and suffering to win—is shared and accepted by athletes, in this case by our two athletes (the swimmer and the sailor): “It is through pain that you progress”(Nadal). The sports system, through the establishment of the elite track—a symbol of sporting excellence—is based on the production of an elite. The champion is the one who invests themselves body and soul; they must be high-performing and infallible. This is how the model in the image of the champion is constructed. One might therefore think that the champion, by incorporating the standards set by the system or institution, builds themselves by following the model and then embodies it. On the other hand, coastal walking breaks away from this logic. According to Rouanet, “Sport allows one to develop sensations, thereby enabling one to push the body’s limits a little further” (2013, p. 135). Young coastal walkers are more likely to embrace this logic, which seems sufficient to achieve a victory experienced as a very positive experience, even though it is rejected by all elite athletes: “Winning easily makes you feel guilty” (Champignoux, 1992).

However, in the case of coastal walking, the respondents do not view competitive participation as a burden. In fact, for most of them, coastal walking is evolving rapidly compared to other sports that are firmly established within the traditional sports system. In some cases, there is even a complete lack of preparation. It would seem that coastal walking diverges from the traditional norms of the champion model. It offers young people a new champion profile. We are therefore witnessing a non-coercive sporting success. The young champion is undeniably valued by their club and those around them. Consequently, in a sport where older participants predominate, the young longe côte athlete plays the role of a champion who serves as a role model and conveys a youthful image of the sport.

It can therefore be argued that the stereotype of a champion based on the idea that “you must triumph through pain” or “suffer to win” has not yet taken hold in the world of coastal walking. For these young people, the champion seems to be a role model accessible to everyone. The coastal walker finds fulfillment as a champion and shapes the role model in their own image, far removed from the model endorsed by the traditional sports system. For most of them, being the first champion walkers gives them a legitimacy that will allow them to gradually build the model. Among the five subjects interviewed, four claim to be role models on the condition that they manage to achieve other athletic feats. The door is therefore open to young people who may have given up or stopped playing sports due to health issues, but also to those who will not be able to break into a “highly demanding” sport. Longe côte has made feats previously unimaginable possible. Thus, one can imagine that the young longeur champion is poised for a meteoric rise in the sport.

Conclusion

This study has provided a better understanding of why young people take up coastal walking, an emerging activity that primarily involves people over the age of 60. The study was conducted under very specific conditions, notably the difficulty of finding young participants for face-to-face interviews. Furthermore, there is a lack of literature on this activity. Nevertheless, this study has allowed us to demonstrate the existence of a new model of sports participation that is taking root in longe côte.

These results show that the majority of the young coastal walkers surveyed are trailblazers in the sport, some of whom even achieve athletic success despite their health issues. It would thus appear that the absence of a pre-established role model has prompted them to create a model in their own image—and, why not, a role model with whom they can identify. However, the desire to create such a model is not explicitly stated. In fact, the ability to be a champion without too many constraints and without requiring peak physical condition appears to be a key factor in maintaining young people’s competitive commitment to coastal walking. Based on the comments of the young people we interviewed, it is clear that this desire to create a model for coastal walkers exists. The need to continue competing and to contribute to the development of this model is evident among most of our respondents.

The establishment of a championship in recent years has given these young people the opportunity to prove themselves as champions while breaking away from the stereotype of the champion model set by the (elite) sports system as the standard. Thus, the young lunger transforms the adage of athletic success—which posits a path of “suffering and hardship”—into one of “easily attainable success,” thereby making participation accessible to everyone.

Furthermore, it is important to highlight the key role that health plays in this choice of activity; we believe it is important to study this role in order to understand how health could become a factor that attracts people to this sport. This question could be explored in future research.

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* Internship completed at the Departmental Directorate for Social Cohesion in Hérault (
) as part of a preliminary study for the development of the 2018 coastal walking program (
).

** Alison Wave Club in Mandelieu, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, number of young line skiers
: 5. Hyères Club, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region: 2.

*** Overall standings for the 100m individual race at the 2019 French Longe Côte Championship (
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**** Comments by “Yoann Coedel, 35, 2017 French Longe Côte Champion” during an interview with him for my thesis in 2019 (Achouri, 2019).