As his heat of the men’s 3,000 metres steeplechase neared its conclusion at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Tim Van de Velde looked back over his shoulder.<\/p>\n
What he saw was a fellow competitor gingerly crawling over the last barrier that went terribly wrong for both.<\/p>\n
Van de Velde’s hopes of qualifying for the final were already crushed.<\/p>\n
The Belgian turned around, put an arm around stumbling Carlos San Martin and helped the Colombian limp to the finish line.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tim Van de Velde (right) fell at a water jump during his heat in Tokyo. (Reuters: Eloisa Lopez)<\/p>\n
The show of sportsmanship on Saturday evening between the 10th and 11th-place finishers came in an otherwise routine heat.<\/p>\n
But it was a highlight of a busy opening night at the World Athletics Championships, even on a day when five gold medals were handed out.<\/p>\n
“I saw him stumbling and thought, ‘Why not?'” Van de Velde said after the race.<\/p>\n
“We both had bad luck, I guess. Maybe we can share some bad luck together.”<\/p>\n
Earlier, Van de Velde was racing at the front of the leading pack as they approached the water pit in the third lap of the heat.<\/p>\n
Steeplechasers are required to vault five three-foot-high barriers placed around the track, one of which fronts the two-foot-deep water obstacle.<\/p>\n
He clipped the barrier and fell in the water, and by the time he got up, his hopes were dashed.<\/p>\n
Van de Velde raced the rest of the way just to say he finished.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old is no stranger to these sorts of slip-ups.<\/p>\n
He broke his collarbone after a fall at the European Championships in Rome last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, he fell into the water and injured his ankle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I know what it’s like to feel helpless on the track,” Van de Velde said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Carlos San Martin needed assistance as he left the track. (Getty Images: Hannah Peters)<\/p>\n
As does San Martin, who was helped off the track in a wheelchair and did not come through the media’s mixed zone.<\/p>\n
Van de Velde said it would take time to recover from his latest disappointment.<\/p>\n
The positive news is there is a great chance he will be remembered for something other than where he finished.<\/p>\n
“We’re both competitors. We both work very hard,” Van de Velde said.<\/p>\n
“Of course, the main goal was the final and we both had bad luck, so that’s why I did it.”<\/p>\n
AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As his heat of the men’s 3,000 metres steeplechase neared its conclusion at the World Athletics Championships in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[96350,5654,64,63,2071,96347,32976,96351,85,96348,96349,96346,11804,81438,81437],"class_list":["post-141275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-3000-metres","tag-athletics","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-belgium","tag-carlos-san-martin","tag-colombia","tag-heats","tag-sports","tag-sportsmanship","tag-steeplchase","tag-tim-van-de-velde","tag-tokyo","tag-track-and-field","tag-world-athletics-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}