Objectives: To assess the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural consequences of sport career termination of national and international level athletes in three nations. Design and methods: Athletes of Germany (n = 88), Lithuania (n = 65), and Russia (n = 101) were asked to describe in retrospect their reactions to career termination. The Athletic Retirement Questionnaire developed by the first two authors and presented in three corresponding languages was used. Planning of retirement and national identity served as independent variables. Dependent variables were reasons and circumstances for career termination, participants' emotional reactions, coping reactions, athletic identity during and after sport career, and adjustment to life after career termination. Results: Analyses of variance revealed significant main effects of retirement planning and national identity on most dependent variables. Planning of retirement contributed to significantly better cognitive, emotional, and behavioural adaptation. In addition, high athletic identity contributed to less positive reactions to retirement and to more problems in the adaptation process. The emotional reactions of Russian and Lithuanian athletes were similar, but differed from the German athletes who, in general, showed more positive and lesser negative emotions after retirement. Though accepting the reality of retirement was the most often used coping strategy among all participants, Lithuanian athletes showed more denial and Russian athletes more distraction strategies after retirement than the other nations. Discussion: The results are discussed with regard to athletes' readiness for career transition in different social and cultural environments. Recommendations are given on how to help athletes to prepare for and to cope with career termination. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
