I heard Rush Limbaugh say very often:
“You don’t win the silver—you lose the gold.”
Bill Jordan wrote a book about revolver point shooting called NO SECOND PLACE WINNER, meaning that in a one on one pistol fight you’ve gotta come out on top. My bookmark for Jordan’s book is my red second place ribbon I got for a 5K run (I think there were only two runners in that race in my geriatric age bracket).