As someone who was involved with music competitions I can attest to being happier with 3rd than 2nd. For me it was the fact that if I was 3rd, well at least 2 people were better than me, but if I was 2nd (and it was a close competition) it became an issue of "why did I loose?"
When competition is close you can loose for factors outside of the competition itself. You can loose because of differences in judging opinions or because of a Judge not liking you, worse ranked competitors can win due to scoring calculation systems, you can even loose biased on how hungry or how bad the judges last meal was.
When competition is close you can loose for factors outside of the competition itself. You can loose because of differences in judging opinions or because of a Judge not liking you, worse ranked competitors can win due to scoring calculation systems, you can even loose biased on how hungry or how bad the judges last meal was.