Comment by dsr_

It's not competition that they like. It's winning.

Competitive athletes expect to lose. They don't want to lose, but there's only one winner (or three podium spots) in any given contest. They turn "not wanting to lose" into their motivation for getting better, still knowing that they are fairly likely to lose. The competition is the point, and when they lose, they are still a little happy if they did better than they did last time.

The people who want to win regardless of the competition, regardless of the rules: we call those people bullies.