The idea that an athletic competition--conferring a first, second and third place, holds any substantial meaning at all is completely absurd. All other controversy simply flows from this fact.
Unfortunately, as a society, we've allowed people to tie their livelihoods to it: people spend their lives training for competitions and the prestige of winning them can directly contribute to their livelihoods through income from deals with sponsors, etc.
As long as there's agreement that it's unfortunate, we can discuss ways to dismantle the system in a way that doesn't destroy the livelihoods of many people. But I'm afraid most people don't agree that it's unfortunate.
This depends entirely on each individual. Mike Tyson referred to his championship belts as "garbage".
Everyone knows that 99% of life is not under your control. But it can still be entertaining to design games around the (supposed) 1% that is under your control.