"You Won't Always Win" - What age should this be taught?

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I have another incentive based event that brought on another issue that I see... We have coin races to fund raise - basically, the kids bring in loose coins and try to fill up classroom buckets... the classroom with the most gets a pizza party, the PTA gets the funds... very popular event. However, again this years PTA 'powers that be' decided that instead of the winning CLASS getting a pizza party, the entire winning GRADE would get one... brought on by younsters not understanding that they can't always be the winner. This issue raised alot of concern with a number of parents because it's not teaching the concept of healthy competition... it's teaching the kids "why even TRY, we're going to be rewarded anyway"... Both this issue and my other posted issue were raised in PTA meetings, but there were more parents who wanted to see their kids rewarded for ANYTHING other than excelling... so... I try to teach my child that certain things are expected, you don't get rewards. In a contest, SOME ONE is going to loose. If you want to be rewarded, you need to excel... it's just getting so hard to teach this when he's surrounded by kids who are constantly SO obviously being held to lower standards... Thoughts? Perspective?