Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The True Olympic Spirit

A Russian skier,Anton Gafarov, was trying valiantly to finish the race after a bad fall. He had broken one of his skis but was trying to will it to the finish line. After falling again, a Canadian coach hurried onto the track and gave him his ski to allow Gafarov to finish the race with some dignity.

You can catch it between about 30 to 60 seconds into the video on this page.

Call it payback of sorts because in 2006 a Norwegian coach threw her ski pole to a Canadian skier, Sara Renner, who had lost hers. Sara went on to defeats Norway's own skier, but the Norwegian coach, Bjornar Hakensmoen, thought it was the fair thing to do.

By the by, the Canadian coach is Justin Wadsworth, who was born in the USA. So, I guess four countries were involved in this affair: Canada, Russia, Norway and USA. Pretty neat, eh?

A fuller account of the incident may be read here.

13 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

a saw a snippet of it on msn today. really awesome. we need more of this. :)

Jackie said...

Wonderful examples of sportsmanship....

Anonymous said...

That's really nice. I'm happy to read about it.

Anonymous said...

That's really nice. I'm happy to read about it.

Anonymous said...

Apparently, I'm twice as happy to read about it as most commentators:-)

Tabor said...

Missed this...the Olympics is always full o such heart-warming stories.

Gail Dixon said...

That is a really awesome story. Thank you for sharing it since I am not watching. Have a great day!

Mara said...

I read it tonight. A lovely story. I heard the athlete finished last. But at least he did finish!

troutbirder said...

In the true Olympic spirit. We could use more of that....:)

Unknown said...

Makes you smile, n'est-ce pas?

Hilary said...

Makes you proud to be human. And Canadian. ;)

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

I heard about that unselfish act and saw a video and it was a wonderful thing to publicize.

Donna said...

A true moment of unity.....well done!
hughugs