I'm looking for an idiomatic phrase that lies between "the thrill of victory" and "the agony of defeat", in the competition itself, enjoying it for its own sake — something like "the joy in competing" (which gets a few thousand Google hits, but not loads.) Otherwise I could go with something like "competing for the sake of enjoyment".
Does anything else come to mind?
Best Answer
might get you the kind of hits you want in about the right area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_fellow_well_met