Durante la carrera deportiva algunos deportistas compaginan el deporte con su carrera académica y vocacional, y otros no. Para explicar este fenómeno hemos partido del modelo holístico de transiciones de Wylleman y Lavallee (2003) y hemos incorporado el concepto de estrategia cómo elemento teórico central. A partir de 26 entrevistas en profundidad y una encuesta telefónica realizada a 94 deportistas olímpicos (67 hombres y 27 mujeres) se observan dos tipos de situaciones: por un lado deportistas que tienen conciencia de futuro, se marcan objetivos sencillos y coherentes a largo plazo para compaginar estudios y deporte. Para poder hacerlo realizan acciones tales como gestionar el tiempo, asistir a clase, escoger menos asignaturas, tener profesores particulares, reducir puntualmente la práctica deportiva, etc. Todo ello, principalmente, gracias a la influencia familiar. Y, por el otro, los que no tienen conciencia para preparar su futuro profesional y no desarrollan acciones para hacerlo. Este resultado implica desarrollar programas y atender a los deportistas según las características de los perfiles identificados. El articulo termina haciendo alguna sugerencia de cómo deberían ser estos programas.

During their sports career some athletes combine their sporting activities with their academic and vocational career, while others do not. To explain this phenomenon we based our research on Wylleman and Lavallee's holistic model of transitions (2003) and incorporated the concept of strategy (Mintzberg, Quinn and Voyer, 1997) as a central theoretical element. From 26 in-depth interviews and a telephone survey conducted on 94 Olympic athletes (67 men and 27 women) we observed two different situations. On the one hand, there are athletes who are aware of their future, who have a deep understanding of their work environment and who set simple, coherent, long term goals to combine studies and sport. They also perform actions (time management, class attendance, syllabus streaming, one-to-one classes, occasional reduction of training, etc.) to make this possible, thanks, principally, to the influence of their family. On the other hand, there are those who do not combine a career in sports with an academic and vocational career. The key difference is that they are not aware of the need to prepare their future careers and they do not develop strategies to do so. These findings suggest developing programs and catering to sportspeople according to the characteristics of the profiles identified. The article ends with some suggestions regarding the characteristics of these programs.