The people who say that a healthy attitude toward athletic competition is one in which you “compete against yourself” for the sake of “self-improvement” are the people who suck at athletic competition. Instead of doing something else that they’re good at, they are drawn to the practice for reasons other than those that established the practice. They “compete” to enjoy the benefits of the community, the health benefits of training, the camaraderie of the team, etc. But their fragile egos can’t handle the fact that they suck at doing what the practice, the competition, was set up to do: determine who is best at Sport X. So, they are unconsciously pulled to “overturn” the existing value system on which the practice was established. They tell themselves that, not only is winning not everything, it’s not even important. They start calling all the podium finishers winners despite the fact there is only one winner. They tell themselves that the purpose of the competition, despite all evidence to the contrary, is self-improvement. “I compete against myself”, they say, as if that made any sense.

When several of these people get together, and their similar attitudes are revealed, the prospective safety of the herd leads them to take a nasty turn, out of resentment that the winner of the competition still gets respect and accolades for winning. It is, after all, hard to hold a competition and not have a winner. But the herd tells itself that the desire to beat other people and win is an unhealthy attitude to take to competition. What explains that desire?, they ask themselves. It could only be that they want to harm other people! They hate the people they compete against! No, it’s a selfish ego-satisfaction thing! Whatever, they are bad people! Yeah, we do not want to be like those bad people!