Moral Injury in Elite Sport: Trauma in the Failure of the Athlete’s Quest

This article considers whether the trauma syndrome moral injury, as developed within the military context, is applicable to elite sport and to sport's wellbeing and integrity discourse. In the face of mounting wellbeing and integrity problems faced within elite sport, the literature examining the wellbeing and integrity of sport, is calling for a multidisciplinary response that considers the moral and ethical frameworks within elite sports' institutions. Moral injury presents as such a response. Examined is the growing use of moral injury in the civilian context and specifically amongst healthcare workers. Drawing together this work, moral injury is posited as applicable to elite sport though contextually contingent. As has been summarised within the military context for potentially morally injurious events, there is often the taking of life, whereas in the medical context it is in the failure to save life. This article argues that in elite sport the context for potentially morally injurious events is in the failure of the quest, where the quest is the elite athlete's socially constructed ultimate existential purpose. Its traumatic loss can cause the shattering of identity and teleological meaning, and the loss of trust in self and others.