What’s The Difference Between An ATHLETE And PLAYER? (learn Here)

 
 

Difference between an ATHLETE and a PLAYER

The winter Olympics were in South Korea in 2018 and during the games, we heard the word athlete used a lot. The news talked about people competing from countries all over the world.

One of my private students here in Japan asked me “What’s the difference between an athlete and a player?” It’s a good question and I thought maybe other people studying English have the same question so I’d like to answer it in this blog post. I hope it’s helpful for you!
 
Athlete vs Player
 
    ↙ Click for pronunciation
player – a person who takes part in a game or sport
a tennis/rugby/chess, player etc.
 
2 chess players
 
    ↙ Click for pronunciation
athlete – a person who competes in sports
“Canada’s Olympic athletes marched together for the opening ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver winter games.”
 

What’s the difference?

Athlete is a more general word that can be used to describe a person involved in sports or physical activities.

 The Olympics has teams with players, but only for sports like tennis, soccer etc. Sports that use a ball. 

 Events that are not measured by goals but measured by time, (the fastest skater for example) 

~ measured by distance (the longest ski jump for example) 

~ or scored by judges (snowboard half-pipe, figure skating etc.) 

the participants are usually called athletes not players.

~ Rock climbers are athletes but we don’t call them players.

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Player is more specific, it’s used for games or sports that you “play” against another person or team. (You can also play a game against a computer) Play is used for sports with a ball. We also play hockey (hockey uses a puck) and badminton (badminton uses a shuttlecock).

 ~ Lionel Messi is considered one of the best soccer players alive.

 
*For many Olympic sports we call the participants by their sport name + er. The same way someone who washes windows is a window washer, someone who snowboards is a snowboarder, someone who skates is a skater etc.
 
 
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