When awards were introduced, I was competitions manager at the time and thought that having an award for every single event was OTT (we did one almost every month back then). I have changed my mind on it since then (much nicer for people to have their own special badge for the event they entered) but the gold/silver/bronze was winning 1st/2nd/3rd place in a big event done by the comps (or events dept but they were happy making their own so it essentially became just for comps).