PERSONAL QUALITIES AND CAREER LONGEVITY OF ELITE LATVIAN ATHLETES

In recent years, sports psychology researchers have shown a growing interest in exploring various facets of sports careers, career transitions, the personal qualities profile of athletes who achieve peak sports performance, and the existing models and distinctions within career stages. This research aimed to examine the link between the mental qualities and skills and the sports careers of elite Latvian athletes and to seek potential differences dependent on sports career stages, level of qualification, and gender. The research was done among 109 elite athletes from Latvia aged 17 to 40, practicing 19 sports – 71 men and 38 women. For the purposes of the research, the subjects were divided into groups according to two criteria: 1) depending on the different stages of their sports career and 2) depending on the type of development of their sports career. The research methods included: Latvian personality survey (LPA-v3, Perepjolkina et al., 2011); Sports et al. (SMTQ; Sheard et al., 2009), adapted for Latvian conditions by Astaficevs et al. (2020); Psychological Performance Inventory Alternative version (PPI-A; Golby et al., 2007), adapted for Latvian conditions by Astaficevs et al. (2020.); General et al. (GSE; Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995), adapted for Latvian conditions by Astaficevs et al. (2020); Psychological Skills Inventory for Sports (PSIS-R5), adapted for Latvian conditions by Fernāte Andra, 2008. The obtained results revealed some differences in the personal profiles of the Latvian athletes depending on the stages and type of their sports careers, level of qualification, and gender. We found higher results along the factors conscientiousness, honesty and modesty, and the lowest results along the factor neuroticism among the elite athletes. We found significantly higher values of the mental skills: anxiety control, concentration, mental preparation, motivation, self-confidence, and control among the men.