Motivation and coping in the sport of triathlons

The purposes of this study were to examine the links between self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) and the dualistic model of passion (Vallerand, 2008) and to examine the coping strategies used by triathletes differentiated by motivation and passion type. Additionally the differences between triathletes with sustained involvement in Ironman distance triathlons and those with little or no Ironman distance experience were also compared. Triathletes (n = 299) completed several measures assessing passion, motivation, leisure time exercise, coping strategies, and goal attainment via two online surveys. Structural equation modeling (SEM) methods were employed to test several models involving situational motivation (Lonsdale et al., 2008) and coping strategies (CICS; Gaudreau and Blondin, 2002) as mediators between passion and goal attainment and potential future triathlon event participation. Results revealed that the original full structural model did not fit to the data well but one with parceled indicators fit reasonable well to the data. Examination of the path coefficients, however, indicated that motivation and coping were mediators between passion and goal attainment but not future triathlon intentions. Harmonious passion was a strong predictor of situational autonomous motivation and coping was a moderately strong mediator between motivation and goal attainment. Future intentions to run triathlon events were better predicted by direct paths from autonomous motivation and obsessive passion.