Two Athlete Friends To Win The Olympic Gold Together Leave The Crowd In Tears – Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

With the Olympics Games Tokyo 2020 under way since the 23^rd of July last month, China is seen in the lead followed by the United States and Japan. There have been countless wins and losses for every country participating in the ever-anticipated Olympics.

During one of the events, precisely the Men's high jump – Athletics, two athletes, Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi both competing in the finals went against each other only to be led into a draw between the two. Both Barshim and Tamberi jumped to a whooping 2.37 meters. As part of the rules, the officials asked for a jump-off to settle the tie. The two had to make three more jumps each in order to settle on the sole gold winner. They did so, however none of them could go above their original mark of 2.73 meters.

As the winner couldn’t be decided after the 3 jumps from either of the athletes, the officials asked them to make one more jump. However, at this point, athlete Tamberi had dealt a leg injury and decided to withdraw. Barshim now had the opportunity to make a better jump for the gold medal for his country.

Tamberi was out but Barshim checked with officials asking them what would happen if he withdrew from the last jump as well. The officials then checked the rule book and confirmed that if Barshim withdrew his name as well, then it would mean a gold medal for both the Qatar and Italian athlete. To which, Barshim nodded in approval and Tamberi accepted it as well and jumped to hug the Qatar athlete. Thus, both Tamberi and him received a gold for the event. Both, Barshim and Tamberi have been good friends since 2017.

Barshim has previously taken bronze in London in 2012 and silver in Rio five years ago in 2016 and the gold from this year’s Olympic is an addition to his success.

“For me, coming here, I know for a fact that for the performance I did, I deserve that gold,” Barshim said. “He did the same thing, so I know he deserved that gold. This is beyond sport. This is the message we deliver to the young generation.” Winning is not everything in a game and both he athletes have given the message to the rest of the world to respect your rivals whiling sharing the success with those who deserve it.

As the two men shared the gold medal, the spot for silver was dismissed and the bronze went over to Belarus’s Maksim Nedasekau. He also won the gold medals at the 2021 European Indoor Championships, 2019 European U23 Championships and 2017 European U20 Championships.