This article discusses the successful bid for the 2016 Lillehammer winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) and its incorporation within the broader youth sport strategy within organised sport in Norway. Although it is widely accepted that the argument that major sports events are a solution to problems of low levels of involvement in sport is not generally supported by evidence Norwegian sport organisations used this argument as a primary justification for hosting the YOG. The aim of the research is to investigate: a) why NIF used this argument even though there was so little evidence to support its validity; and b) how and why this seemingly contradictory argument was successfully ‘sold’ to the public. The research was guided by the methodological approach of discourse analysis and the theoretical framework of the neo-institutionalist concept of legitimacy. Based on this analysis I show how the institutionalised rhetoric of the Norwegian youth sport policy (YSP) adopted by the Norwegian Olympic Committee and Confederation of Sports (NIF) became the main argument for the YOG bid. Further findings show that rather than responding to the youth sport participation problem, NIF used the development of youth sport as a convenient rationale to bid for the YOG in order to secure legitimacy from two of its main stakeholders – the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Norwegian government. Rather than hosting the YOG as solution to a youth sport participation problem, NIF used the institutionalised rhetoric of the YSP, defining a problem to fit the solution.

This article examines the current governance structures in international competitive snowboarding and analyses empirically how key actors operate within the diverging logics that shape such structures. We expand upon the existing literature on professional snowboarding by offering a more contemporary understanding of the constantly evolving processes of institutionalization. Qualitative data was gathered from the authors’ first-hand experiences with international snowboarding, based on (1) interviews with system insiders, (2) document analysis, and (3) participant observations. Two dominant and contradicting logics of competitive snowboarding were identified, forming a fragmented, dual institutional structure that we call the industry-based and nation-based governance model. Our findings suggest that recent professionalization processes have led to defragmentation efforts, thus signalling a shift towards a nation-based governance focus. Therefore, we conclude that other action sports that will join the Olympics, such as surfing and skateboarding, are advised to find solutions for mediating inherent contradictions of governance logics to avoid institutional fragmentation at an early stage.

The aim of this study is to review the literature on lifestyle sports and lifestyle sport contexts with regard to the developmental potential they may represent in young people’s everyday lives. The review applies a relational developmental systems approach to youth development. The eligibility criteria are based on the phenomenon of interest and outcomes. Hence, we include studies examining the associations between young people performing lifestyle sports and potential developmental outcomes: mental, biological, social, and behavioral. The present study shows that the volume of research on informal lifestyle sport is rather extensive and that studies on the way these activity contexts may affect developmental processes in youth are diverse and wide ranging. The studies suggest that performing lifestyle sports may have several beneficial health and skills outcomes. Furthermore, positive associations are suggested between involvement in lifestyle sport contexts such as climbing, snowboarding, parkour, tricking, kiting, and surfing and (a) mental outcomes such joy, happiness, freedom, euphoria, motivation, self-efficacy, and well-being; (b) social outcomes such as gender equality, network building, social inclusion, interaction, friendship; and (c) behavioral outcomes such as identity, creativity, and expressions of masculinity and/or femininity. The review performed indicates that lifestyle sport contexts are flexible according to needs and desires that exist among the practitioners and that the human and democratic origins of these contexts make them supportive for positive movement experiences and for positive youth development. The findings have implications for PE teachers, social workers, policymakers, sport organizations, and urban architecture, in that providing lifestyle sport opportunities in the everyday lives of young people will foster a holistic development in a positive way.

Neo-institutional concepts of organizational change and organizational reproduction combined with implementation theory are employed to examine the implementation of the Norwegian youth sport policy (YSP) associated with the Youth Olympic Games. The YSP also called ‘youth campaign’, aims at increasing the number of young leaders, young coaches and young athletes. Data were generated from semi-structured interviews and observations and show that implementation is characterized by revitalization of existing practices within the Norwegian sports system through translation and bricolage and innovative entrepreneurship. Our data indicate that the focus of the implementation was on the recruitment and education of young leaders. The development of young coaches and the recruitment and retention of young athletes are neglected. The non-involvement of national sport federations and sports clubs as well as the complexity of administrative layers are causes for the lack of effective implementation. In sum, a lasting impact on the Norwegian youth sport development is doubtful.

The purpose of this paper is to construct knowledge on the working processes of nomination committees (NCs) in sport and analyze their potential to shape board composition. The significance of such...

This study explores the relevance, and applicability, of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in relation to Norwegian sport organizations’ sustainability transition. The following research questions guided the study: (1) How do National Sport Governing Bodies (NGBs) strategically address and prioritize SDGs and why? (2) How does the strategic prioritization of SDGs align with sport managers’ perspectives? (3) What does their prioritization of SDGs imply about the progress of sustainability transition within the Norwegian sports sector? The qualitative study is based on three interviews with directors in NGBs, document analysis of 11 strategy documents by six NGBs’ and essays produced by 82 sport managers representing the respective NGBs. Data analysis was informed by neo-institutional theory and the waves of sustainability transition framework. In our sample, spanning a diverse range of sports, we observed that 10 different SDGs are seen as relevant for NGBs from a strategy perspective, while sport managers prioritized eight. There is a strong alignment between national strategies and sport managers’ perspectives which is explainable through coercive, mimetic and normative pressures within the organizational field of sports. This further demonstrates that SDG prioritization is linked to the sport political context. While the alignment of prioritization from different perspectives provides a solid foundation for advancing sustainability work, the missing link between the SDGs and organizational goals with concrete suggestions for measures witnesses that Norwegian sport organizations are still in the infancy of sustainable transition.