Out of the Blocks: Starting Times

Abstract

Chapter 1 sets the agenda for the discussion in the book by raising questions about the primacy of time and temporality in sport, about which times matter and about how time matters. This chapter poses some of the questions which are explored in the book by suggesting that sport is in some ways a distinctive field of inquiry but one in which a discussion of time and the conceptualisation of temporality have theoretical importance and resonance across a wide range of social and cultural areas. The immediacy of sport and its immersion in the ‘now’ generates ways of thinking about the relationships between past, present and future.