Any athlete who makes it to the Olympic Games
deserves our respect.
Year upon year of gruelling training, grinding it out,
the same thing again and again and again -
all for just one chance,
the one moment, that one goal.
The thing is, even for Olympians,
life doesn't always go according to plan.
Mexico, 1968.
The men's marathon, as usual, was the final event of all.
This is Mamo Wolde.
He's just won the gold medal in a time of
two hours, 20 minutes and 26 seconds.
Mission accomplished, dream fulfilled.
This is what he set out to do.
His vision.
Gradually, more and more athletes finish the race.
The middle of the pack. The "also rans".
No medals, no definitive glory, but a destiny nevertheless.
Here are some more, further back, the final few.
The stragglers.
And as the dusk falls on the final event,
there's one more story to be written,
one more gallant loser to celebrate.
One that would become the most celebrated loser of all.
It's probably not how Tanzania's John Stephen Akhwari
expected it to go down.
But then, John Stephen Akhwari is not your average everyday
kind of guy and the 1968 Games
were not your average, everyday Olympics.
The high altitude in Mexico City had helped produce some
remarkable feats in the sprints and jumps.
But for the marathon runners, the lack of oxygen in the air
made an already gruelling task even harder.
As the race went on,
more and more fell by the wayside,
unable to survive the cramps.
In the end, 18 of the 75 who started were to pull out.
Akhwari was determined not to make it 19.
He was a world-class runner, the reigning African Champion.
He'd beaten the eventual gold medallist Wolde before,
but had never run in conditions like this.
Like many of the others,
he'd struggled with cramp through much of the race.
But for Akhwari, cramp and fatigue
were the least of his worries.
He'd suffered a painful fall,
sustaining injuries to his knee,
his shoulder, and head...
..problems that would have most of us screaming
for the Emergency Room and a cocktail of painkillers.
Not Akhwari.
Rather than pull out of the race,
he got his knee strapped up
and kept on going.
Asked afterwards what prompted him to keep going, he said,
"My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race.
"They sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race."
And that's exactly what he did.
By the time he approached the stadium,
the medals had been awarded
and most of the crowd had gone home.
In the darkness of Mexico City, Akhwari dug down deep.
He was going to finish.
Word got around - TV crews started following.
Local radio broadcast the story.
The fans came back to support,
to pull him over the finish line.
What goes through the mind of an athlete
in this situation?
"I was just thinking about my mum and dad,"
he said as he completed the final few hundred metres.
When he crossed the line, the time read
3 hours, 25 minutes and 27 seconds.
But for once in a race, the time was irrelevant.
His parents had told him,
"If you start doing something, finish it.
"Otherwise, never start it," and he had listened to them.
The sight of Akhwari bandaged up and limping in the darkness
wasn't the most dynamic image of the Olympic Games,
but it was certainly one of the strangest.