Objectives: The objectives of this study were (a) to examine athletic retirement of former Swiss, Danish, and Polish athletes; and (b) to explore the predictive power of factors on the quality of the transition. Based on existing transitional models, we developed a working model to investigate the predictive power of commonly assumed resources and barriers related to the transition (Park, Lavallee, & Tod, 2013). Design and Methods: Former international elite athletes from Switzerland (n = 231), Denmark (n = 86), and Poland (n = 84) from 35 different sports completed an online questionnaire in their native language. Mean/proportional differences across countries were explored using ANOVAs and chi-square tests. For each sample, a multiple regression analysis was performed with 26 predictors on the transition quality, which was a component score of seven variables. Results and Conclusions: More differences were found among individual characteristics (e.g., educational level, athletic identity, confidence in skills), whereas athletes reported a similar pattern concerning retirement planning and voluntariness to end their career regardless of the context. The adaptation process following the career end was easiest for Swiss athletes and most difficult for Polish athletes. Results of the multiple regressions revealed both common resources (e.g., voluntariness) and barriers (e.g., athletic identity), but also factors that worked as resources in one context, but as barriers in another (e.g., high sport-career income). We propose to avoid generalizations about resources and barriers influencing the transition, but to apply a culturally sensitive approach when studying athletic retirement in different contexts.

This review examines some particular, but important and basic aspects of information: Information is related to questions and should provide at least partial answers. Information comes in pieces, and it should be possible to aggregate these pieces. Finally, it should be possible to extract that part of a piece of information which relates to a given question. Modeling these concepts leads to an algebraic theory of information. This theory centers around two different but closely related types of information algebras, each containing operations for aggregation or combination of information and for extracting information relevant to a given question. Generic constructions of instances of such algebras are presented. In particular, the close connection of information algebras to logic and domain theory will be exhibited.

14Objectives: Despite many reports on best practises regarding onsite psychological 15 services, little research has attempted to systematically explore the frequency, issues, nature 16 and client groups of onsite sport psychology consultancy at the Olympic Games. The present 17 paper will fill this gap through a systematic analysis of the sport psychology consultancy of 18 the Swiss team for the Olympic Games of 2006 in Turin, 2008 in Beijing and 2010 in 19 Vancouver. 20Method: The day reports of the official sport psychologist were analysed. Intervention 21 issues were labelled using categories derived from previous research and divided into the 22 following four intervention-issue dimensions: "general performance", "specific Olympic 23 performance", "organisational" and "personal" issues. Data were analysed using descriptive 24 statistics, chi square statistics and odds ratios. 25Results: Across the Olympic Games, between 11% and 25% of the Swiss delegation used 26 the sport psychology services. On average, the sport psychologist provided between 2.1 and 27 4.6 interventions per day. Around 50% of the interventions were informal interventions. 28Around 30% of the clients were coaches. The most commonly addressed issues were 29 performance related. An association was observed between previous collaboration, 30 intervention likelihood and intervention theme. 31Conclusions: Sport psychologists working at the Olympic Games are fully engaged with 32 daily interventions and should have developed ideally long-term relationships with clients to 33 truly help athletes with general performance issues. Critical incidents, working with coaches, 34 brief contact interventions and team conflicts are specific features of the onsite consultancy. 35Practitioners should be trained to deal with these sorts of challenges. 36

Retirement from elite sport is considered a major life-changing experience for athletes and thus has attracted career researchers since the late 1960s (Hill & Lowe, 1974; Lerch, 1982; Mihovilovic, 1968; Svoboda & Vanek, 1982). Early studies have described the end of an athletic career as a traumatic event and therefore, have mostly focused on negative outcomes. Later studies have revealed an alternative view where athletes may feel relieved from the heavy burden of their athletic commitment (e.g. Coakley, 1983; McPherson, 1984; Sinclair & Orlick, 1993). Nowadays, athletic retirement is no longer seen as a single event, but as a process-oriented transition in which a ‘whole career’ and ‘whole person’ approach is applied (Stambulova, Alfermann, Statler & Côté, 2009; Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004). Recently, there has been an increased focus on contextual factors that are related to the athlete’s career development and transitions. These factors have been studied at the meso-level (i.e. talent development environment; Henriksen, Stambulova & Roessler, 2010) and at the macro-level (i.e. nation/culture and sports system; Kuettel, Boyle & Schmid, 2017; Park & Lavallee, 2015; Stambulova, Stephan & Jäphag, 2007; Tshube & Feltz, 2015). Furthermore, comparative studies have shown that applying a cultural-sensitive approach can help to increase the knowledge about the influence of the context on the transition process of elite athletes (Si & Lee, 2007; Stambulova & Ryba, 2013, 2014). In this paper, we, the authors intend to contribute to a better understanding of the contextual influence on athletic retirement by examining and comparing the transition out of elite sport for former Swiss, Danish, and Polish athletes.

Zusammenfassung. Interessen sind in der Berufs- und pädagogischen Psychologie, nicht aber in der Sportpsychologie, ein zentrales Persönlichkeitskonstrukt zur Erklärung menschlichen Erlebens und Verhaltens. Der Sportinteressentest (SPIT) ist auf der Basis der Theorie von Holland (1997) und der Konditionsfaktoren Ausdauer, Schnelligkeit, Koordination und Kraft zur Erfassung sportbezogener Interessen entwickelt und an 1 243 Jugendlichen teststatistisch überprüft worden. In konfirmatorischen Faktorenanalysen erwiesen sich 11 Skalen als eindimensional; ihre interne Konsistenz schwankte zwischen .71 und .87. Die Korrelationen des SPIT mit dem Allgemeinen Interessen-Struktur-Test ( Bergmann & Eder, 2005 ) und den Skalen zur Erfassung des physischen Selbstkonzepts ( Stiller, Würth & Alfermann, 2004 ) fielen weitgehend erwartungskonform aus. Mit dem SPIT liegt ein Verfahren vor, das sich zum Screening multidimensionaler Interessenprofile und zur Beschreibung jugendlicher Zielgruppen im Freizeit- und Gesundheitssport anbietet.