A sport odyssey

In sport and fitness, personal meanings of physicality are negotiated and contested, and many women are empowered by the self‐definition of physicality. Physically active women push their physical and mental limits. In doing so, they also construct and reconstruct personal identity and social conventions. Physicality offers a sense of protection and the perceived ability to ward off potential attack or heal past victimisation. In this personal tale, I employ hybridity, or multi‐genre writing styles, to shed light on the construction and negotiation of identities through physical activity and sport. In this paper, I insert my voice and use my experiences to reflect upon the social constructions of sport, gender and identity. I frame sport as an odyssey, a long wandering, in which my personal identities transform in reaction to changing personal, social and cultural circumstances.