rival

A competitor (person, team, company, etc.) with the same goal as another, or striving to attain the same thing. Defeating a rival may be a primary or necessary goal of a competitor.

Chris is my biggest rival in the 400-metre race.

Every day is like survival / You're my lover, not my rival

Someone or something with similar claims of quality or distinction as another.

As a social historian, he has no rival.

One having a common right or privilege with another; a partner.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, / The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

Having the same pretensions or claims; standing in competition for superiority.

rival lovers

rival claims or pretensions

To oppose or compete with.

to rival somebody in love

To be equal to, or match, or to surpass another.

But the Waverley is still the best-placed station of any British city, and gives the arriving stranger a first impression rivalled in Europe only by the exclusively watery station approach at Venice.

The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, […].

To strive to equal or excel; to emulate.

to rival thunder in its rapid course