Studia Kinanthropologica 2025, 26(3):111-119

Steel Man: A Case Study on Equal Opportunities in Sport

E. Hurych
Department of physical education and social sciences, Faculty of Sport Studies of Masaryk University

This study examines the ethical problem of fair opportunity in sport, using the Czech endurancestrength competition Steel Man (in Czech Ocelový muž) as a case study. The event, founded in 1999 by Karel Vydra, combines five disciplines – pull-ups, sit-ups, bench press repetitions, a 5 km run, and a 40 km cycling time trial. It involved 40–70 participants per year, including men, women, and juniors. In 2017, the organisers introduced a new scoring system with recalculations based on age, sex, and body weight to achieve greater fairness. Archival records, scoring tables, and official results from 1999 to 2019 were examined through a conceptual-ethical analysis. The findings indicate that frequent midseason rule changes and unclear coefficients produced inconsistent results, participant dissatisfaction, and declining attendance, culminating in the end of the national cup format after 2018. This paper provides a conceptual and ethical analysis of this case, demonstrating how the pursuit of fairness became self-defeating and outlining guidelines for sustainable fairness in similar competitions. The study concludes with recommendations for sustainable procedural fairness grounded in transparent, stable rules complemented by empirically validated compensatory mechanisms.

Keywords: equality in sports ethics; equality of opportunities; deontology; consequentialism; case study; Steel Man

Received: November 3, 2025; Revised: December 15, 2025; Accepted: January 9, 2026; Published: January 28, 2026  Show citation

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Hurych E. Steel Man: A Case Study on Equal Opportunities in Sport. Studia Kinanthropologica. 2025;26(3):111-119.
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