Mujer y piragua

The physical-sports practice is valuable for any individual’s overall health. However, dropout from sports is an increasing phenomenon accentuated in the formative stages, especially in female practitioners. Reasons for withdrawing are diverse and highly dependent on the characteristics of each sport and its practitioners. Canoeing in a very demanding and competitive discipline that has shown a very high dropout rate (32.9% to 49.7%) among federated female athletes from our country in the last five years. This study aims to recognize the reasons why canoeists abandon the practice so to help establishing measures and recommendations to mitigate this occurrence in the future. A mixed strategy, combining qualitative and quantitative approach, was employed for the study purposes. The qualitative study was based on two focus groups, one composed by ex-paddlers (n = 6) and one with coaches/s (n = 8), while the quantitative study consisted of an ad-hoc questionnaire conducted by telephone with athletes who withdrew from that sport within the last three years (n = 160). The results confirm that women's dropout has a multifactorial nature, yet it is largely determined by gender biases commonly underestimating paddler women, excessive competitive pressure, difficulty in pairing canoeing and education, and lack of categories with lower competitive level. Federations and authorities should make greater efforts in promoting women's canoeing modality.