The Olympics spirit!

Olympics brings athletes from different sporting & cultural backgrounds together. It is a sports fest where best of the best compete but in the right spirit.

The Olympic rings represent the union of the five continents.

I believe that the best friendships are made, best lessons are learnt & the best memories are made when you play sports.

What better way than sports to get the world together under one roof!

The Olympic values called "Olympism" are Excellence, Friendship & Respect in every part of life to deliver a better world now and for generations to come.

Olympics is not only about winning medals. It is much deeper.

One such story at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics touched my heart. 

1. Split the GOLD!

Men's high jump 

The men's high jump final was a remarkably close contest. It was probably the best high jump final ever.

The 3 finalists were Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim, Italian Gianmarco Tamberi & Belarus' Maksim Nedasekau. 

Maksim was awarded Bronze because he had missed some of his earlier attempts. 

So, it was down to the 2 friends, Barshim & Tamberi for Gold & Silver.

Here is where the story starts.

Both had fought similar career threatening injuries to play at the Tokyo games.

Tamberi was having the best time ever before the 2016 Rio Olympics but weeks before the Olympics, he ruptured the tendons in his ankle. He still went to RIO with a cast on, to cheer his team mates.

You know what, even in the 2020 Olympics, he got the cast to Tokyo as a symbol of what he had to overcome to be there.

Barshim, probably the best high jumper of all time, had won everything, except the Olympics Gold. Even he had ruptured the tendons in his ankle in 2018. He recovered & came back from behind to win the 2019 World championships.

Now, both were fighting for the precious Gold at Tokyo.

The bar now was raised to 2.39m but neither of them could clear it. 

The question was, how do we decide the winner?

An Olympics official came to both of them with a solution: 'jump - off'. In a jump-off, each jumper gets to jump at progressive heights determined by the officials until one of them misses.  

What happened next embodies the Olympic spirit. 

Barshim asked the official : "Can we have two golds?" 

The official replied " it's possible"

The 2 athletes looked at each other, no words exchanged. They knew it. That is what they wanted.

The celebration after that got tears to my eyes.

Please watch the video below to understand what it meant to the 2 of them. 

https://lnkd.in/guJdFUir

They both knew what they had gone through to be here & to perform at this level. They knew both deserved it. 

A jump-off would have been cruel. 

Both got Gold & no silver was awarded.

This is what Olympics is all about. Values before victory. 

Olympism of Excellence, Friendship & Respect are all embodied in this fabulous display of sportsmanship.

I wish the 2019 WC had ended the same way. We have a lot to learn. 

Jai hind

#tokyo2020 #olympics2020