Zheng, Jinming

This research explains how unexpected and uncontrollable chance events can facilitate or constrain competitive advantage in sport, through a study of Iran in five weight division-specific sports (i.e. weightlifting, wrestling, taekwondo, judo and boxing). The analysis relied on data collected from 25 semi-structured interviews. The study identifies six types of chance events impacting elite sport – economic crises, sport-specific crises, diplomatic tensions with foreign countries, political decisions by foreign governments, technological discontinuities, and new policies and rules of international governing bodies. The contributions of this paper to the literature reside in the identification of crises as a major type of chance events and the discovery of some chance events specific to elite sport.