The story goes that defending champ Arrhichion was awarded the win as an Olympic wrestler when the guy who was grappling him loudly submitted due to extreme pain, what with all that dead weight pressing down on his ankle or his toe or whatever.
So they promptly called the match for Arrhichion, who’d – well, died.
SOMETIMES, it isn’t immediately obvious if a battle resulted in a huge victory or a shattering defeat. In the Napoleonic Wars, the battle between the French and the Russians at Borodino seemed more like a draw than like a huge Russian victory at the time. As Tolstoy noted in “War and Peace,” it was only as the French began their long retreat from Russia that the extent of the Russian victory became apparent.
It was seen as a French victory at the time, not a draw - the French advanced to seize Moscow after the battle, and the Russians could not stop them.
It was however a good example of a “Pyrrhic victory”, as the Russians refused to concede defeat, regrouped, and continued the war - which the French had no way of winning, in the context of a Russian winter.
Far fewer people would remember Lou Gehrig today if not for his disease and his farewell speech. I would call the disease a failure but the remembrance as a victory. He never would have gotten out of Babe Ruth’s shadow otherwise.
When Darth Vader struck down Obi-Wan in Episode IV, when Luke lost his hand and fell in Episode V, when Darth died but was still redeemed in Episode VI.
For that matter, Pyrrhus of Epirus himself, after defeating the Romans in battle a couple of times remarked, “If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined”.