athletic contest
Noun
Meaning
a contest between athletes
Source: WordNetSynonyms
Hypernyms
Hyponyms
Examples
It's not enough to say that the Olympics is an athletic contest outside of politics, because it's not. The Chinese clearly are using the Olympics to recreate how they are viewed in the world and how they view themselves.
To him, a ball game wasn't a mere athletic contest. It was a knock-'em-down, crush-'em, relentless war.