The public health policies and sanitary measures taken by governments in various countries to stem the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g. lockdown, social distancing) have major implications for athletes. The radical changes are challenging and risk causing significant career disruption to athletes, with subsequent negative psychological effects. Thus, the ways athletes cope with such adversity is of critical importance. The present study aimed to identify athletes' coping profiles using a person-centred approach, based on their reported use of multiple coping strategies in response to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, and to compare levels of anxiety, stress appraisals, interpersonal coping strategies, and availability and appreciation of the major sources of support across profiles. A total of 526 French athletes competing at national to elite levels answered an online questionnaire during the lockdown. Latent profile analysis results yielded four distinct coping profiles (i.e. self-reliant, engaged, avoidant, active and social). The MANOVA showed that athletes belonging to the four profiles differed on anxiety, stress appraisals, social support, and interpersonal coping. In particular, avoidant copers reported high levels of anxiety, threat, and uncontrollability, and appeared less able to regulate responses to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. Using a person-centred approach, the findings could inform the development of more adequate care, support, and intervention for athletes, especially avoidant copers, who were characterized by the least effective coping skills and resources. Accordingly, stress reappraisal and stress mindset interventions could be promising approaches to effectively manage pandemic-related impact during and after the COVID-19 crisis. Highlights. The COVID-19 outbreak has major implications for athletes and is causing significant disruption to their careers. Using a person-centred approach, four coping profiles emerge showing athletes' preferred use of several coping strategies in response. . The four coping profiles (i.e. self-reliant, engaged, avoidant, active and social) differentiate distinct groups of athletes in relation to anxiety, stress appraisals, social support, and interpersonal coping. . Avoidant copers were characterized by the least effective coping skills and social context of coping. Management of the COVID-19 situation may be more problematic for them than other in mitigating its negative psychological effects. . Using a person-centred approach, the findings could inform the development of more adequate care, support, and intervention for athletes, especially avoidant copers, who were characterized by the least effective coping skills and resources.

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The purpose of this study was twofold. First, to identify the stressors parents encounter when supporting their children performing within elite sports contexts. Second, to understand how parents cope with the stressors they encounter. A two-stage design was used. First, 1,299 parents (fathers ϭ 529, mothers ϭ 761, stepfathers ϭ 8, legal guardian ϭ 1, and parent dyads ϭ 187) of adolescent athletes completed an open-ended survey to identify stressors associated with their child's sports involvement. Next, 16 parents of adolescent athletes participated in semi-structured interviews. Data from both stages were analyzed using hierarchical content analysis. Stage 1 results indicated that parents encountered a variety of organizational, developmental, competitive, and parental personal stressors, including time, financial, logistical, health, and education concerns. Stage 2 results highlighted that parents use numerous coping approaches to manage their experiences, including detaching from sport (e.g., sharing parental responsibilities and child's ability to cope), information seeking (e.g., information seeking in their current environment and drawing on past experiences), managing emotional reactions (e.g., emotional release strategies), avoidance (e.g., parent or child ignoring the situation), taking control (e.g., changing their own behaviors or others making changes), and parents providing support to their child (e.g., social support and being present). Overall, findings point to the importance of ensuring that interventions with parents, as well as the practices of sports organizations, need to expand account for a broader range of parental stressors and suggested coping strategies.

This study aimed to: (a) examine the relationships between high-level athletes' perceptions of mothers' and fathers' behaviors, their satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and sport motivation and (b) explore whether the sex of the athlete moderated the aforementioned relationships. A total of 333 adolescent athletes involved in intensive training settings completed the Parental Involvement in Sport Questionnaire (PISQ), the Behavioral Regulation in Sport Questionnaire (BRSQ) and the Basic Need Satisfaction in Sporting Context Scale (BNSSS). Data were examined using correlational analyses and partial least square path modeling (PLS-PM). The PLS-PM revealed that father's perceived pressure positively predicted maladaptive outcomes (controlled forms of motivation and amotivation). Perceptions of the mothers' and fathers' praise and understanding positively predicted adaptive athletes' outcomes (self-determined forms of motivation and satisfaction of competence and relatedness), whereas the mothers' and fathers' perceived pressure negatively predicted such adaptive outcomes. Furthermore, differences regarding the aforementioned relationships between mother's and father's behaviors and athletes' outcomes were highlighted across their sex. More significant relationships emerged for boys versus girls and between athletes' outcomes and the perceived behaviors of the same-sex parents. In particular, the direction of relationships between introjected regulation and two parental behaviors (i.e. perception of father's directive behaviors and perception of mother's pressure) was reversed for boys and girls. As a whole, this study highlighted that both parent's and child's sex should be evaluated to understand sport parenting.

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