Noger (2009) evokes that beyond a certain threshold, the sport can lead to psychological risks for health. In this perspective, studies have focused on the athlete burnout (i.e. syndrome of reduced accomplishment, physical and mental exhaustion and sport devaluation ; Raedeke, 1997).The objective of this thesis is to examine the process of burnout in adolescent athlete enrolled in elite training structures through three lines of research. The first line has focused on conceptual breakthrough in athlete burnout. The second line has focused on the development of burnout in sports, taking into account the effects of gender and the causal influences between the dimensions. The results of study 2 showed that reduced accomplishment diminish, exhaustion raise then diminish, and sport devaluation raise from 13 to 19 years old; and also that girls have higher scores than boys on two dimensions. The results also highlighted that the more an athlete has a sense of reduced accomplishment and exhaustion, the more he devalues his sport. Reciprocally, he could feel more exhausted initially and then to feel less and less exhausted. The third line of research studies 3 and 4 examined the influence of the coach on burnout – from the self-determination theory and the achievement goal theories – and showed that an athlete perceiving a controlling coach, feels less autonomous and self-determined and he will be prone to have higher burnout. Meanwhile, an athlete perceiving that his coach creates an ego-involving climate, pursues mastery avoidance goals and be likely to develop higher burnout. A final study confirmed that athlete burnout is multidimensional and includes inter-individual differences
