the challenge-match endnote: pale feet as a perverse rank-badge
An advantage of competitive mediocrity is you get to sit in the stands and get lots of sun on your feet and chest, because you’re knocked out of competition by like the second round. Hence grotesquely pale feet are sort of a perverse mark of competitive status, maybe like toothlessness in hockey or something.
Context
Ranking legible on the skin. The mediocre player, "knocked out... by like the second round," sits in the stands and tans; the deep-drawing competitor never does — so "grotesquely pale feet are sort of a perverse mark of competitive status, maybe like toothlessness in hockey." The seeding writes itself onto the body: the more you win, the less sun you've seen, and a bloodless foot is a trophy.