You can "win" NaNo? Granted, I've never done it and don't know much about it, but I thought participants were just supposed to reach a set goal. But there's a winner? Who won last year?
I think you can distinguish achievement and accomplishment from the idea of winning.
Caro, the whole point is to distinguish the difference between "winner," which refers to anyone who meets their goals during NaNo, and "first place," which we could use to refer to the person who finished their 50k first.
Everyone who writes more words during NaNo than they might have ordinarily is a winner. Everyone who has fun during NaNo, or learns something -- all winners.
As for the person who got 50k first, I'm not sure we can even find that out, because we don't even validate that we've done it until after the 25th of November. And really, who cares if you were first, or if you were last? That's not the point of the exercise at all.
So to reply to your last statement, accomplishment
is winning. Being in first place? Not necessarily so.