I'm in my mid-thirties and I can give you an exact age that I saw this happen - 8 years old.
My elementary school always had a 'field day' where the home room classes in the different grades would compete in simplified track and field events. Simplified as in things like a standing long jump, tug of war, 50 yard dash. There were a lot of events but you could only choose to be in 2 of them.
Apparently my class decimated the competition. Whoops. The most athletic kids just happened to be placed in the same home room. We had the fast kids and we had some big, strong kids (we owned tug of war by a large margin). We got almost all of the first and second place ribbons, maybe a third here and there.
So, the next year (2nd grade) there were no first, second, or third place ribbons. Everyone got a participant ribbon and that was it. The teachers were instructed to not talk about anyone being 'winners'. I know this because my mother was a 1st grade teacher there and we've talked about this a couple times over the years.
My elementary school always had a 'field day' where the home room classes in the different grades would compete in simplified track and field events. Simplified as in things like a standing long jump, tug of war, 50 yard dash. There were a lot of events but you could only choose to be in 2 of them.
Apparently my class decimated the competition. Whoops. The most athletic kids just happened to be placed in the same home room. We had the fast kids and we had some big, strong kids (we owned tug of war by a large margin). We got almost all of the first and second place ribbons, maybe a third here and there.
So, the next year (2nd grade) there were no first, second, or third place ribbons. Everyone got a participant ribbon and that was it. The teachers were instructed to not talk about anyone being 'winners'. I know this because my mother was a 1st grade teacher there and we've talked about this a couple times over the years.