A little-noticed race ended with one of the most heartwarming moments of the Paris Olympics.
The first of four women’s 100m qualifying races at the Paris Games, in which only the top three from each race advance to the first round, took a heartbreaking turn on Friday when South Sudan’s Lucia Morris collapsed to the ground and began screaming in pain.
Sirinia Par Apai of Laos, who ran alongside Morris in lane two, finished sixth in 12.45 seconds, officially ending her Olympic career.
But then she sprinted towards the starting line and attracted the attention of doctors, creating one of Paris’ most memorable moments. The Washington Post.
Footage shows Morris lying on the ground, clutching his leg in pain, about 30 metres from the finish line.
“Just scream,” Fa Apai, who witnessed the accident out of the corner of her left eye, told her fellow Olympians, according to the Washington Post.
“We are athletes,” Pa Apai, who will be making his Olympic debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games, told the paper.
2024 Paris Olympics
“We’re the 100m. It’s the same. Every 100m runner has to know what it feels like when you get injured. And this is a big meet. It’s a big dream to come here, and then you get injured. So we all know that feeling.”
Morris, 28, was reportedly escorted as he was carried out of the stadium on a stretcher.
Some of the other runners also came to watch the South Sudanese runners.
It represented a bittersweet moment of sportsmanship at the Olympics and certainly a remarkable start to the first day of track and field events.
Congo’s Natacha Ngoye won the qualifying round in a time of 11.34 seconds but finished sixth in the first round and failed to advance to the semifinals.
Sha’Carey Richardson of the United States, making her Olympic debut, was one of the favorites to win, and advanced to the semifinals with a time of 10.94 seconds.
