When Tim Van de Velde turned bitter disappointment into dazzling sportsmanship at the World Athletics Championships

I’ve been asked several times if there will be a sequel to “Hero Redefined.” The truth is I’m not sure. But, if there is such a sequel in my future, I doubt I could find an act much classier or brimming with more sportsmanship than what Tim Van de Velde displayed on a Tokyo track last Sept. 13.

Competing in the 3000-meter steeplechase on day one of the World Athletics Championships at Japan National Stadium, Van de Velde had already swallowed a healthy dose of heartbreak and disappointment. The former Belgian junior record holder and 2021 winner of the Belgian Athletics Championships began his race with high hopes and led for the first couple of laps. All that changed in the third lap, when the 25-year-old hit a steeplechase barrier and fell into the water obstacle.

The race had become disheartening, too, for Carlos San Martin, a 28-year-old Colombian who had already competed in the 2019 World Athletics Championships and won a 2019 Pan American Games silver medal in the 3000 steeplechase for his country. He had struck a barrier prior to Van de Velde doing so, falling into the water on his hands.

Neither of these gifted runners was going to finish in the top five, which is what it took to reach the 3000-meter steeplechase final two days later.

That left two men coming down the homestretch of the steeplechase, destined for disappointment yet determined to finish. Van de Velde was ahead of San Martin, and when he looked back to see his competitor trying to struggle over a final barrier, a powerful thought crept into his viewfinder.

“I know what it’s like to feel helpless on the track,” Van de Velde told the Associated Press. A year earlier, he had fallen at the European Championships and broke his collarbone.

So, instead of doing his own thing and finishing ahead of San Martin, Van de Velde jogged back to comfort and put his arm around San Martin. “I saw him stumbling and thought, ‘Why not?’” he told the AP. “We both had bad luck, I guess. Maybe we can share some bad luck together.”

The two men – one white, one black – finished arm-in-arm, Martin boosted to a 10th-place finish while Van de Velde came in 11th. Of course, the finishing times and places had been rendered irrelevant, completely overshadowed by a simple yet powerful act of sportsmanship, one athlete lending compassion and solace and a helping hand to the other. In times like these, I can only applaud and say, more of that, please.