Female long-distance runner’s imaginary

Abstract

With the rapid and signifi cant rise of female long-distance runners in function to the results achieved over the last two decades, these athletes have gained recognition in the worldwide sports scene. However, this path has been paved with a lot of human toil and sweat, self-denial and many tears. Therefore, we felt motivated to investigate the meanings that running has for these women, which have led them to doggedly keep at their aims, and to know why they have not been satisfi ed with their achievements, and yet, kept in search of breaking records. The study, which is that of a qualitative nature, has been carried out under the umbrella of knowledge of Social Ideal aiming at: a) investigating some meanings which are present in these athletes' discourse; b) evidencing imagery, symbols and myths which are in it. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with the Brazilian elite female long-distance runners. Among the myths these long-distance runners brought to mind, we could identify Artemis, Athena and Narcissus. It was identifi ed that, in spite of appearing homogenous, the group formed by these athletes could fall into two subgroups: The former runs FROM, which resorts to running as a means of overcoming differences, and the latter runs TOWARD, which resorts to running in search of the pleasure of victory. The method used for interpreting the discourse was the Discourse Analysis of Eni Pulcinelli Orlandi. The mapping of linguistic marks, which emerged from the discourse, allowed the explicitness of the following meanings: enjoyment, profession, individualism, talent, the dream and the ideal, presented with polysemic meanings.