Abstract

This article examines STIHL Timbersports® and its amalgamation of craftmanship, competition, eventification and branding, through the lens of decontextualization of sport. It thus revisits and revitalizes the concept of sportification, as well as discusses the characteristics of sport such as authenticity and “uncertainty of outcome”. The aim of the article is to grasp the different processes that challenge our common positions regarding sport, which may in turn progress sport beyond the prevalent conceptualization of modern sport.

Highlights

  • In Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga ([1939] 2004) argues that sport originates from play, but that the play element appears to get lost in modern sport due to a mounting seriousness in the wake of increasing rationalization and professionalization as well as various commercialization processes

  • What we have observed is a decontextualization of skills in the wake of a sportification of a profession, there remains a certain contextual resemblance and logical connection between STIHL as a company and STIHL Timbersports® as an event and regular modern sport

  • STIHL Timbersports® is related to a process in which professions and professional skills are transformed into sports and athletic aptitude

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Summary

Introduction

In Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga ([1939] 2004) argues that sport originates from play, but that the play element appears to get lost in modern sport due to a mounting seriousness in the wake of increasing rationalization and professionalization as well as various commercialization processes. In comparison to the period of 1920–1960, in more recent decades heavy work with chainsaws on the ground has been superseded by advanced forestry trucks and wagons (Hjelm 1991) Despite this change, the craft and craftmanship have turned up in a different setting, albeit in an altered manner: in the form of Timbersports. Through the progress of Timbersports, a real social activity (a work/profession) gradually transformed into a sport—or a sport event—which, in turn, has generated professional timber athletes, trained and coached to compete, not to work. Timbersports® challenges our familiar concept of sport and offers a clear and analytical focus on social processes in sport such as decontextualization and eventification In this respect, STIHL Timbersports® appears, as an enigmatic sport, to blend the characteristics of modern sport with the tendencies and predictions of future sports

Aim and Methods
An Athlete’s Perspective and Experiences
Got Talent’ and Virtual Championships as New Platforms for Sport
Sportification Processes
Technology and Authenticity
The Indoorization and Urbanization of Sport
The Eventification and Commercialisation of Sport
Conclusions
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