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Comment by jliptzin | Hacker News Reader

I see how this makes sense in business, real estate, and in nature but I don't get the sports analogy. Where is the accumulating advantage from one race to the next for a swimmer, for example? If the gold medal swimmer eeks out a win by just 0.01 seconds, 5 races in a row, to me those are all independent events not affecting each other so I don't see why there should be any other explanation other than the swimmer is just slightly better than everyone else?

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If you don't think that gets into the head of the swimmer's competitors then you are mistaken. Further, success attracts success; a swimmer with a slight advantage wins more prize money, attracts the attention of better coaches, gains more fans and so on, all of which may combine to improve performance by just enough to maintain a competitive advantage. All these might seem like extrinsic factors to you but interdependence and interaction are a reality; pure independence is a useful analytical tool, but we dwell in the world of matter, not of forms.

Aside from the benefits others have mentioned, winning contests increases testosterone and lowers cortisol, creating feedback effects for winners and losers.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2606468

Once you win a gold medal - you're more likely to attract better trainers / facilities / sponsorship. That can be used to build an unassailable advantage.

If you'd want to argue for the effect, you could say the winner gets sponsors, better food, better trainers, better doctors, less time for fund raising, more time for training, etc.

Imagine two swimmers the exact same age. They can swim competitively from age 21--30. There are 10 meets per year. The question is this: after each year, what is the probability that swimmer A has more medals than swimmer B? The resource for swimmers is time.

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