 |
| *Gafarov's agony |
A CANADIAN coach was applauded Wednesday for showing the true spirit of
the Olympics when he helped a Russian cross country skier to finish after
breaking a ski in a crash.
Russia’s
Anton Gafarov was competing in the semi-finals of the men’s sprint on Tuesday
when he fell on a high speed hairpin bend that caused problems throughout the
competition.
His left ski badly damaged, Gafarov still tried to limp to
the finish but then the ski disintegrated entirely.
With Gafarov facing the prospect of skiing on one leg to the
end, Canadian ross country ski coach Justin Wadsworth rushed to his aid and
gave him a ski which Gafarov used to ski to the finish several minutes behind
the leaders. “It is entirely to be applauded, and that’s one of the things why
we all love the Olympics,” said International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark
Adams. “As well as being an amazing elite sport, there is something special as
well, there are values underlying it as well,” he added. Sochi 2014 spokeswoman
Alexandra Kosterina added: “It is just the essence of the Olympic Games, the
Olympic spirit, in its core. So I think that is great.” Wadsworth said he had to act. “It was like
watching an animal stuck in a trap. You can’t just sit there and do nothing
about it,” Wadsworth
was quoted as saying by the Toronto Star. Quite why no Russian coach was
on hand to help the unfortunate Gafarov - and that it needed a foreigner to
come to his rescue - remains a mystery. “I just had one aim - to get to the
end,” Gafarov told Russian sports website sportsdaily.ru. “Some foreigner then
gave me skis from a different firm.” Gafarov finished the race to huge cheers
from Russian supporters but visibly upset after missing out on his chance for a
place in the final. He blasted the track as “unfit for the Olympics”, saying he
had fallen as his ski had ploughed into a clump of snow that had not been removed.
No comments:
Post a Comment