Abstract
The study focuses on three phenomena representing the reverse side of sport: pain, suffering and death. Naturally, it does not pretend to analyse them in their complexity, observing them through the prism of ethics. The latter inevitably asks questions such as: to what extent are these phenomena inevitable in contemporary sport, especially elite sport? Do they work against the so-called "spirit of sport"? how do they interfere with the existential structure of individual athletes, in a biodimensional perspective?
Despite the negative connotations they have acquired in the history of sport, do they also present some positive features? The aim of the essay was to find - necessarily limited - answers to some of these big questions of sport ethics, which are penetrated by transcendental overlaps. The chosen method combines theoretical insights from social sciences and biomedical kinanthropology with a hermeneutic search for invariance in the actions or case studies of some of the prominent representatives of the topic under analysis. The main result can be considered as finding a criterion in the form of the authenticity of the sporting individual, who freely chooses the degree of pain, suffering or risk of death to achieve sporting goals, taking into account the lifelong dimension and social consequences. The opening up of other thematic areas that emerged as a juxtastructure of the ones studied, especially in the form of the phenomenon of heroism, sacrifice and the "second life" of athletesʼ actions, in which the media sphere and social networks play a growing role, can perhaps be considered a partial result.