also-ran 
noun (plural also-rans)
1A loser in a race or other contest, especially by a large margin: the line between champions and also-rans...
- This Saturday's game - and we can leave Italy out of any Six Nations equation - is a race for the also-rans, the contest for an elliptical wooden utensil, the championship's booby prize.
- Armstrong has reduced the Tour into a race for also-rans.
- Don't decry their initial efforts, but in the end they were reduced to the role of also-rans in a two-horse race.
1.1 informal An undistinguished or unsuccessful person or thing.Even when he excelled at his favourite hobby of banger racing he was an also-ran, a man with a reputation of being shy, introverted and insignificant....
- Once the undisputed premier provider of law enforcement handguns to America, the company found itself an also-ran in a few short years.
- We started imitating rather than innovating and wound up making faux American also-rans.
Origin
Late 19th century: originally applied to racehorses that did not finish in the first three.