Among the world champions in sport, several sportswomen have been able to combine a career in elite sport with motherhood, and a few have even supplemented this combination with further studies or employment. The attempt is made to render the phenomenon of elite sports mothers intelligible by offering some insights into the actual practice of the athletic career. An empirical study undertaken among individual sportswomen who combine their athletic careers with motherhood and education or work focused on the analytical question of how excellence within sports is produced. The pragmatic aspects of organizing and practising elite sport appear to question central concepts of career developed in the sociology of occupations. Instead, this article uses a concept of career elaborated within the tradition of symbolic interactionism to analyse how the individual athlete's practice encounters the structure of sport. The answer indicates whether `elite sports mothers' have achieved excellence against all odds.
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