When third place is better than second

Was Milorad Cavic the unhappiest man at the Beijing Olympics? Cavic was the Serbian swimmer who seemed set to win the 100m butterfly. In doing so, he would have upset the party for Michael Phelps, who was seeking to win his seventh medal of the games. In the event, Phelps came from nowhere to beat Cavic by 1/100th of a second. Indeed, most people, commentators included, seemed to think that the declaration of Phelps as the winner was a mistake -- until they saw the slow motion replay.

In general, the silver medal position in sporting events seems to be less enviable than the bronze, according to research published in 1995 by Medvec, Madey, and Gilovich. These authors recruited some students who had no interest in sport and asked them to view footage from the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. The students were asked to rate how happy the athletes appeared. Some footage showed the reactions of silver and bronze medallists at the moment that they learned their positions, and other footage showed the medallists during the awards ceremony. To avoid any bias in what footage was shown, editing decisions were made by someone who did not know what the study was about, but who had been asked to pick the shots that best captured the emotions of the athletes.

The authors found that, on average, bronze medallists actually appeared happier than silver medallists. When the content of post-event interviews was examined, bronze medallists were found to be more focused on how they had performed, whereas silver medallists talked more about how they had almost performed. This kind of "upward comparison" is known to be associated with negative emotion, as when you find out that one of your co-workers has received a larger pay rise than you. But how long does the effect last for the silver medallists? Back in 1995 Medvec and colleagues noted that no-one had done any systematic research, and to the best of my knowledge this is still the case. However, they did note the case of Abel Kiviat, who just missed the gold in the 1500 metres at the 1912 Olympics after Britain's Arnold Jackson came from nowhere to beat him by 1/10th of a second. At the age of 91, Mr Kiviat reported that he still sometimes woke up in the night wondering how he could have lost. I can't help wondering, will this be the fate of Milorad Cavic?

UPDATE

Since originally posting the above, I've found that Milorad Cavic has a webpage. There he says that he is really happy with winning silver, which was the greatest moment of his life. He adds that there is nothing wrong with losing to the world's greatest ever swimmer:
http://www.zimbio.com/pilot?SP=1&ZURL=%2FMilorad%2BCavic%2Frolls%2F2%3FSort%3Ddate&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.miloradcavic.com%2Fportal

It would be interesting to know whether this is a typical feeling; that is, whether silver medallists are happier when they know they have been beaten by the greatest ever. However, there are so few people in the same class as Michael Phelps that this could be hard to test.