Athlete’s motivations from different regions of Portugal for the practice of athletics as a federated sport

Introduction: Athletics is an important sport because it offers a determining basic preparation for other different sports (Sampaio, 2010). Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the motivations that led athletes to practice athletics and to know if the fact that lived in different country regions influences these motivations. The participants were 184 federated athletes from 5 different zones of Portugal (Castelo Branco, Coimbra, Leiria, Santarem and Setubal). Methodology: To understand the motivations that lead athletes to practice athletics, the questionnaire EMI-2 (Exercise Motivation Inventory version 2 of Markland and Hardy (1993), translated for the Portuguese population by Alves and Lourenco (2003) was applied and were collected during the national championship. For statistical purposes we used descriptive statistics, arithmetic mean, standard deviation and inferential statistics, with the application of One-Way Anova and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Results: The results showed that the Psychological and Physical Condition motives were the most valued, while the Health and Body Related motives were the least valued by the athletes belonging to the different regions. As for the results of the means, only statistically significant differences were found in the physical fitness motives, more valued by athletes from the regions of Setubal and Santarem and less valued from the athletes of Coimbra e Castelo Branco. Conclusions: The conclusions showed some uniformity in the importance attributed to the reasons that led the athletes to choose athletics as a federated sports practice.