An examination of cyclists's commitment to their sport

The purpose of this study is to investigate the commitment of cyclists to their sport who participated in the cycling races held in 2017. The sample of the study was composed of 406 cyclists who have participated in six different races which were held in accordance with the annual activity calendar of the Turkish Cycling Federation. In order to determine cyclists commitment to their sport the Turkish version of "Athlete Engagement Questionnaire" was used (Kara, Kelecek and Aşçı 2015). Furthermore, the questionnaire also included a personal information form which were created by the researcher to collect demographic information.This questionnaire was applied to cyclists who were randomly selected one day before the race. The subjects were voluntarily completed the questionnaire. According to the results, it was found that men's scores werestatistically significant than women's scores in the sub-dimension of "vigor" (p <0.05).Regarding marital status of the cyclists, singles scored statistically higher (p <0.05) in the "dedication" sub-dimension than married subjects. Further, statistically significant differences were found in the sub-dimensions of "confidence" (p<0,05), "dedication" (p<0,05) and "vigor" (p<0,05) between the secondary school graduates and university graduates. This difference is in favor of university graduates. There was no difference concerning "enthusiasm" sub-dimension. On the other hand, there was no statistically significant difference among the socio-economic status of the subjects in any of the sub-dimensions of "trust" "commitment" "vigor" and "enthusiasm" sub-dimensions. In terms of cycling levels variable, the cyclists marking the low level scores lower than both the high and very high level cyclists in the sub-dimension of "confidence" (p<0,05). Furthermore, the difference between high and very high level of cyclists with moderate cyclists was significantly significant (p<0,05). When the relationship between cyclists' cycling year, sports year, number of competitions and commitment sub-dimensions is examined, there was a low but significant positive correlation between cycling year and sub-dimensions of "confidence" (r=0,11) and "enthusiasm" (r=0,12). Similarly, a significant low level positive correlation was found between the number of competitions and the "trust" sub-dimension (r=0,14).There was no significant relationship between sports year and commitment sub-dimensions. As a result, when the results are summarized in the light of the research findings; gender, marital status, educational status, year of cycling, year of sport, year of competition and participants' socioeconomic level variables play an important role in determining sports commitment.