Yeah, i'm guessing they survive and make it to a finish line and are brought back into the studio for a prize ceremony and then taken to the back and shot! I don't think you have to necessarily kill a Stalker, just run to another zone or incapacitate them (like Matrix did to Dynamo).
Possibly, the Stalkers may have a set time limit like 10 minutes to kill them and when the time is up, they can move on. As Matrix and his fights happened so quickly as he was so capable of killing them, i guess it wouldn't have come into play then.
LFC
NYK
U CANT C ME
10 YEARS STRONG

Oh, I get that: I'm just curious what the audience would have seen (not what really happened) when they staged the victory of these 3 guys. As I'm writing this, I think I recall: Was all they had to do is get to the safe zone in the end? I guess that wouldn't be hard to fake, I just assumed that meant other stalkers had been killed by Whitman, Price, and/or Haddad (or at least faked), the audience just seemed shocked when a stalker died, like it had never happened before.

The very point is that you can not win!
Whitman, Price and Haddad made it to the end and as someone said, they were basically murdered in the locker room and then fake tapes (like the one of Matrix supposedly gunning down those rioters) were made of those 3 apparently in a tropical paradise with loads of money.
Thats why Mendez was reading the Dogtags around the corpses in shock. She realised they'd been tricked and murdered and Fireball confirmed it with his sarcastic "No. last years looooosers" comment
I'm guessing if those 3 had any family members on the outside, they were told that they had basically gone never to return. Either that or the family were also murdered to keep things quiet.
LFC
NYK
U CANT C ME
10 YEARS STRONG

Re-watched this last night: I'm curious, it didn't seem to come up, how does someone win? Obviously Whitman, Price, and Haddad
didn't win, do we still concern ourselves with spoilers if a movie is almost 30 years old?
. So what would someone do to win? Do you "pay your debt to society" by surviving for X amount of hours? Reaching an end zone?

I think the line was "BuzzSaw! Last years Triple Crown Winner" which I always took to mean it was a prize awarded to Stalkers.

I thought they said buzzsaw was the leading stalker, which meant he had the most kills.
Those three guys that won did so by reaching the end of the obstacle course without getting killed by stalkers. Of course despite getting to the end, they are still convicted death row criminals that can't simply be released back into society, so they had them killed in the locker room and passed it off that they had been set free.
This was neccessary since if the runners knew that they were going to die either way, they would likely not try so desperately to win and the show would not be as entertaining for the viewers.

I know. But, when the announcer introduced Buzzsaw, he said he was last years winner. How can runner and stalker win.

I thought Buzzsaw was last years winner.
He was talking about the alleged runners who supposedly won their freedom.

I thought Buzzsaw was last years winner.

No, last year's losers.