The podium illusion: a phenomenological study of the influence of social support on well-being and performance in elite para swimmers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The value of social support in enhancing performance is well established in non-impaired and sub-international level athletes with impairments. Despite this, no research to date has explored the experiences of social support in elite para-athletes. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of social support in elite British para-swimmers and the influence on their wellbeing and performance. METHODS: A hermeneutic phenomenological study involving semi-structured interviews was undertaken with 8 elite British para-swimmers (3 male, 5 female, mean age 24.9 years). Participants represented 5 para-swimming classes and all 10 of the International Paralympic Committee impairment categories. Data were analysed following a modified version of the Framework Method. Research quality and trustworthiness were ensured through employing techniques including data triangulation, member checking and reflexivity. RESULTS: Five themes and 11 sub-themes were generated. The five themes were: 'the coach-athlete relationship', 'team bond', 'tangible aid', 'The Podium Illusion' and 'British para-swimming'. The overall findings and the magnitude of support mentioned in the fourth theme led to the development of a new model called 'The Podium Illusion' which reflects the magnitude of support that is available to elite para-swimmers to help maximise their performance and wellbeing. CONCLUSION: Social support is essential for athlete wellbeing and performance. Findings underpin a new model, 'The Podium Illusion'.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.008 | 0.012 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.007 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".