athletic contest vs competition

athletic contest and competition both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
athletic contest	Yes	No	No	No
competition	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, competition is a hypernym of athletic contest; that is, competition is a word with a broader meaning than athletic contest:

athletic contest: a contest between athletes
competition: an occasion on which a winner is selected from among two or more contestants

Other hypernyms of athletic contest include contest.

athletic contest (noun)	competition (noun)
a contest between athletes	the act of competing as for profit or a prize
	an occasion on which a winner is selected from among two or more contestants
	the contestant you hope to defeat
	a business relation in which two parties compete to gain customers