*Running *- where Michael Douglas is a marathoner who breaks some bone during the Olympic marathon and manages to finish hours later than the winner.
Requiem for a Heavyweight
Finding Forrester, pretty much.
Prefontaine - based on the guy’s real life, but he lost his bid to win the 1972 Olympic medal for 5,000 meters, and then died in a car accident before the next Olympics in 1976. Roll credits.
Swap in Simon Pegg and you’ve got Run Fatboy Run – only with a sprain instead of a break, and a local marathon instead of the Olympics.
IIRC, it was the Korean-American fighter who refused to continue because the guy had killed his brother and he knew if he kept at it, he would kill the guy and he didn’t want to cross that line.
Ah, you’re right; in hopes of atoning with a correct answer, let me mention that Tony Curtis opts to get the girl rather than win the race in The Great Race.
How about National Velvet? Velvet wins the race, falls off the horse, is taken to the clinic, is discovered to be a girl, and is disqualified. She’s happy anyway because she’s proved she could win.
In that case, I’ll mention Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines - the American loses the London-Paris race when he stops to help the Italian, but the victorious Brit insists on calling it a draw. The American guy gets the girl, too.
In Le Mans, Steve McQueen’s character doesn’t win, though he finishes 2nd to his teammate and beats the bad guy.
This reminded me of The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner which had essentially the opposite ending. Colin was in the lead and was clearly going to win the race but then he chose to stop rather than cross the finish line.
In Pixar’s Cars, Lightning McQueen doesn’t win the Piston Cup- bad guy Chick Hicks does. Lightning has the lead, but gives it up to help the injured “King” (voiced by Richard Petty) cross the finish line.
Now that’s just stoopid.
I was hoping I would be the only one to recall the most excellent Mystery, Alaska.
“This is a hockey town.”
I’m surprised no one has mentioned A League of Their Own yet.
This seems to be a recurring theme in Japanese manga about sports as well: the series ends on some sort of elimination match against their Major Rivals, and the team manages to pull off a victory, but immediately get trounced (off “screen”, even!) in the next series by some no-name team.
But then, the last major serial I actually followed all the way to the end was Slam Dunk, so take my assessment with a grain of salt.
Not as surprised as Elyanna (post #4).
In Raging Bull wasn’t the Jake LaMotta character beaten to a bloody pulp in his final fight?