An athlete is a person who trains their body and skills to compete in sports or physical activities.
It comes from Greek *athlētēs*, meaning 'contestant in the games', from *athlon* 'prize' or 'contest'. The focus was originally on someone who competed for a prize, not just anyone who exercised.
At its root, being an athlete is about struggle for a prize—not necessarily money, but mastery, pride, or records. That’s why even solo runners or climbers with no audience can be true athletes: their 'prize' lives in their own standards.
Historically, sporting contexts often treated 'athlete' as implicitly male, with women’s participation segregated, minimized, or linguistically marked (e.g., 'lady athlete'). Media coverage and institutional language frequently centered men’s sports as the default, reinforcing a male norm for the term.
Use 'athlete' as a gender-neutral term and only specify gender when it is directly relevant to the context (e.g., competition category) and done symmetrically for all genders.
["sportsperson","player","competitor"]
Recognize and name women and nonbinary athletes explicitly in historical and contemporary discussions, where they were often omitted or described as exceptions rather than central participants.
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