Considering the needs for high performance imposed to athletes nowadays, overcoming limits has become a principle and a recurrent term among those who achieve prominence: winners. In the structure of contemporary sports we observe a reproduction of the liberal model which privileges victory, although the first three prizes are awarded in Olympic disputes. This situation very often makes silver and bronze medallists feel defeated, denying their achievement, which is worth a historical record. The unfolding of defeat has not been properly studied, which contributes to denial of that situation by both athletes and professionals who work within the sports universe. The aim of this paper is to present a debate on the image of defeat in contemporary sports as well as how it takes place among Olympic medallists, together with its several representations in the contemporary social context.
Defeat; competition; Sports Psychology; sport and culture