I think Zoey is one of the most interesting friendly rivals in the Pokemon anime. Although she is supposed to be ahead of Dawn in terms of progress, she still had her own flaws to work out, and she did. One of her major flaws was that she was initially a gatekeeper when it came to Pokemon Contests. She didn't like people entering contests if they also did the gym challenge, because she didn't feel that gym challengers could possibly come to understand contests, and that they weren't taking contests seriously. Her opinion on this subject changed when, although initially hostile towards Nando, came to accept him as a fellow contestant after seeing his skills and understanding of Pokemon Contests. Usually, this type of growth typically comes from the less friendly rivals, such as Gary. I feel like when it comes to friendly rivals, Ash's female traveling companions had the more interesting friendly rivals than Ash did. But Zoey is one of the most notable and well-rounded rivals, and I appreciate that Zoey was the winner of the Grand Festival rather than some random ass last minute rival like we got with Solidad's appearance to block May out of the win, as well as Drew losing to some dude named Robert (I actually had to look this up because I forgot who won the Hoenn Contest).
