True Meaning of Sportsmanship

His own athletes were all eliminated early and he wanted to watch the end of the semifinal in the men’s free sprint.

Stood there, he was surrounded by other officials and then he spotted Russian Anton Gafarov coming over a rise and since Gafarov, an early medal favourite, he wanted to watch, but knew that he was struggling in the worse sense.

He crashed on a corner and broken a ski then crashed again and a long, thin layer of P-Tex had been skinned or ripped off his ski and was now wrapped around his foot like a snare.

He was not skiing no longer but rather he was simply dragging it along as well as himself, which from one Athlete to another is not a good site to see.

Wadsworth looked around and to his surprise no one was moving so as to help, including a group of Russian Coaches.

It was like watching an animal stuck in a trap and being Canadian; you can’t just sit there and do nothing to help out, so he rushed in to come to his aid.

In a race typically decided by tenths-of-a-second, Gafarov was three minutes behind the pack. He was trying to make it the last couple of hundred metres down the 1.7 km course.

Wadsworth grabbed a spare ski he’d brought for Canadian racer Alex Harvey and ran onto the track.

Gafarov had now stopped and Wadsworth kneeled beside him and neither one spoke and to the surprise of many, Wadsworth pulled off the broken equipment and replaced it, then the Russian Skier (Gafarov) continued on.

Wadsworth told the media “I wanted him to have dignity as he crossed the finish line.”

If you don’t get a lump in throat thinking about what Justin Wadsworth did for a man he doesn’t know to speak to, but recognizes as a friend in sport, then you should head to the ER. You need a heart transplant.

The moment  in time managed to circle back to the time when Sara Renner in Torino 2006, and the Norwegian official who tossed her his own pole once she’d lost hers placing Canada in the Medal count grabbing a Silver, while this act left Norway to finish in fourth.

The Norwegian, Bjornar Hakensmoen, later said: “This competition, and all competitions, it should be a fight. It should not be decided by skis.”

Great to be a Canadian!!!