Act of Kindness at Sochi 2014

Olympics is the world's most competitive sporting event. Athletes train for years for years to represent their country. Though there are only gold, silver and bronze for every category, everyone gets credit for competing in the sport. Sometimes, unfortunate situations do occur, some fall on ice, some lose balance in the air and some misses a goal. But that is the thing about Olympics, it was never about beating another country, it was about celebrating these athlete's hard work and being kind to one another. That's exactly what Canadian coach Justin Wadsworth did for a Russian skier.

At the men's cross country sprint final, Russian skier Anton Gafarvo's left ski had broken and fell off during the race. Canadian head coach Justin Wadsworth who was watching the race, ran to Gafarvo's aide, giving him Alex Harvey (a Canadian skier that wasn't quality for the final)'s spare skii. The grand gesture of Wadsworth caught a lot attention, especially because no Russian staff had came to help Garfarvo. When interviewed for Wadsworth's act of kindness, he simply said ''It seemed like the Olympics thing to do... It was about giving him some dignity so he didn't have to walk to the finish line.'' 

This was not the first time act of kindness had been done in Olympics. In 2006, during women's cross country team sprint final, Beckie Scott and Sara Renner from Canada were racing when Renner broke her pole. Watching the race, Norweigan coach Bjornar Hakensmoen, gave Renner a new pole allowing her to finish her race. In the end, Renner and Scott finished the race in second place winning a silver medal and Norway finished in fourth place. 

As a thank you, Canada donated 8000 cans of maple syrup to Norwegian embassy. Phone calls and letters of appreciation was sent to the embassy as well. Now a days, it's rare to see such honorable sportsmanship. I am glad in 2014, we can still witness such acts of kindness.