World Athletics Championships: Braima Suncar Dabo helps Jonathan Busby to finish line in 5000m heat

You didn’t need a stopwatch or a measuring tape to identify the biggest winner on the first night of the World Athletics Championships. The gold medal for sportsmanship went to Braima Suncar Dabo.

Jonathan Busby collapses after crossing the finish line in the 5000m heats.

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The opening night of the world athletics championships has been crowned by an amazing gesture of sportsmanship between two unheralded 5000m runners.

In an extraordinary act of selflessness which is winning hearts across the world, Braima Suncar Dabo of Guinea Bissau helped Aruba’s Jonathan Busby to finish the race after he’d almost collapsed.

Both had already been lapped and were competing only for pride when the final lap drama unfolded.

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Braima Suncar Dabo helps Jonathan Busby across the finish line.

Busby falls to the ground after crossing the finish line.

Busby had slowed to almost a crawl, lurching forward uncertainly and looking likely to collapse at any time.

Seeing his fellow competitor in trouble, Dabo came to the rescue, stopping to prop Busby up and then leading him to the finish line.

With the crowd roaring inside Doha’s Khalifa Stadium. the pair eventually crossed the line almost five minutes behind heat winner Selemon Barega of Ethiopia.

Busby then collapsed and was eventually taken away in a wheelchair.

“I just wanted to help the guy finish the race,” Dabo, 26, said afterwards through a translator.

It’s a long way to go but they got there in the end.

“I wanted to help him cross the line. I think anyone in that situation would have done the same thing.”

Both Dabo and Busby are the only men competing in Qatar from their respective countries, with each federation allowed to send one athlete to the championships, regardless of any qualifying standard.

Despite sacrificing his own race Dabo still ran a personal best of 18min10.87sec although Busby was later disqualified.

Originally published as World Athletics Championships: Braima Suncar Dabo helps Jonathan Busby to finish line in 5000m heat