Liminal Experience of Participants in Mass Sports Events: A Case Study of Marathon Participants

Event experience is an important topic in event research. Liminal experience, as the core experience of event participants, remains limited in research on mass sports events. Taking liminality theory as the logical starting point and marathon participants as subjects, this study collected data through interviews and analyzed it under the guidance of grounded theory. Forty secondary categories and ten main categories were extracted to construct a model of the liminal experience for marathon participants. The results show that the liminal experience of marathon participants can be regarded as a gradual process of "anticipation-release, inversion, and transcendence-self breakthrough and growth." The participants broke away from their daily structure with anticipation for the event and expectations of good self-performance. They immersed themselves in liminal experiences through perception, interaction, release, catharsis, transcendence, and inversion. Finally, the participants experienced a bittersweet experienc