Sport

Winning and losing

Sportsmen and sportswomen want to win matches, not lose matches. But you can’t win all the time! Sometimes a team or player deserves to win, but gets narrowly defeated/beaten.

Before they go in for / enter a competition, athletes train hard. They probably attend/do at least five training sessions a week. They are likely to put up a fight to gain/get a place in the next stage/ round of the competition. Of course, a sportsperson’s ultimate aim is to break the world record in their sport. If they succeed, they set a new world record and become a world record holder. They are sure to come up against fierce/intense competition as they try to achieve their ambitions. Sometimes they are satisfied if they just achieve a personal best.

Some sports people so desperately want to win that they take drugs to enhance their performance. This will be discovered when they fail a drugs test.