Olympic Spirit - American coach of Canadian team, gives ski to Russian who broke his in race

[SidDithers]

http://beta.thescore.com/wolym/news/429704

It took Russian cross-country skiier Anton Gafarov twice as long to cross the finish line as his opponents in the men's sprint free semifinals Tuesday, but he got the loudest cheer as he skied across the line. Canadian ski coach Justin Wadsworth got a substantial ovation, too.

The noisy crowd at the Laura Cross-country Ski & Biathlon Center was silenced when Gafarov crashed hard early in his run. As he slowly got back to his feet and attempted to resume skiing, it became apparent that his left ski was broken.

Gafarov was determined to finish his race, so he "limped" on one good ski and one broken ski toward the finish line very, very slowly.

Then this happened:



https://twitter.com/MrHExperience/status/433231017164296192/photo/1

Justin Wadsworth is the head coach for the Canadian Olympic cross-country team. He's an American skier who represented the US at 3 Olympics before moving to Alberta to coach the Canadian team.

Bravo for showing the true spirit of sportsmanship.

Sid

[Gothmog]

1. This makes me smile

Thanks for sharing

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. My favorite story is the US team helping the Indian Luger...

http://www.canada.com/olympics/news/for-sochi-olympics-indias-shiva-keshavan-is-a-luger-without-a-country

I stopped watching the Olympics two days ago, but I hope he does well.

[FSogol]

3. Nice job, Mr. Wadsworth. n/t

[joeglow3]

4. What did the POS Russian tv commentators have to say about it?

[Ed Suspicious]

9. I think you've missed the spirit of the discussion.

[PeoViejo]

10. Precious

[Thor_MN]

11. Feckless

[joeglow3]

13. I think you missed the POS Russian commentators openly bashing all US athletes

and openly rooting against them. So bad, in fact, that even Russian citizens are commenting on how over the top it is.

[yawnmaster]

17. The point is that it would be nice for this discussion to stay on the positive...

To discuss the Olympic spirit.
Not only have you taken this negative, but you have actually gone off-topic.

Personally, if I could only think of the negatives when something positive is brought up, I would create a new OP with my thoughts.

[malaise]

15. +1,000 n/t

[go west young man]

12. You seem a lovely person.

Must be loads of fun at dinner partys.

[joeglow3]

14. No. Just not someone going out of their way to shade Russians true colors

But, as someone who thinks it is no big deal to be gay in Russia because some family took a trip there, I am not too concerned with your opinion.

[Control-Z]

5. This story gave me a happy chill!

I just love this kind of spontaneous human kindness!

Big K&R.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

6. Class act. n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

7. Bravo, indeed. K&R

[okaawhatever]

8. What we call sportsmanship and decency the Republicans call "takers". nt

[REP]

16. Things like that are one of the few things I've ever really liked about the games

I'm old enough to remember when it was (mostly) amateur athletes, and things like this seemed to happen more often - competitors cheering for one another, helping with broken equipment, etc. Nice to see sportsmanship hasn't been detained at these games!

[CFLDem]

18. USA USA USA

[sheshe2]

19. K&R!

Thanks, Sid!