No sports fan need be reminded of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, but what about the agony of victory, the unraveling that can occur when your triumph is so complete there are no more worlds to conquer?
Though it oversimplifies a complex reality to put it that way, something like that seems to have happened to Bobby Fischer, considered by many to be the greatest chess player who ever lived.
Fischer gradually came apart at the seams after achieving the victory he'd dedicated his entire life to — becoming the world chess champion by defeating Boris Spassky and the impregnable Russian chess establishment in an epochal Cold War match in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1972.