Objectives To examine how gender functions in the narrative construction of dual career styles, and how these styles impact the (dis)continuation of a dual career pathway.

Design Longitudinal qualitative study.

Method Life story interviews with 18 talented Finnish athletes (10 cis women, 8 cis men) at four points in time – when they averaged 16, 17, 19, and 20 years of age – followed by an integrative narrative-discursive analysis.

Results (a) contrapuntal style was gender-typically female; (b) monophonic style was gender-typically male; and (c) dissonant style was an important pathway to dual career discontinuation through which gender ideologies impacted the emergent adults with differential outcomes. Although all adolescent athletes aspired to construct a dual career pathway into adulthood, less than half (7 of 18) sustained dual career on and after graduation from upper secondary school. The life course and performance master narratives provided gender-specific scripts for life story and identity development.

Conclusions Our findings signpost that dual career discourse practices are organised along the gender binary, which may be fortifying the assumed normalcy of gendered life choices instead of opening up the field of possibilities. To facilitate cultural change in dual career development environments, we urge for the critical examination of socio-cultural constraints on adolescent athletes' choices.