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The Preussen Munster square off against the Würzburger Kickers

As a soccer match between German teams Preussen Munster and Würzburger Kickers went into its final minutes, a defender from the Kickers, 23-year-old Leroy Kwadwo, stopped to point out a problem in the stands.

A Munster fan was making monkey noises at Kwadwo, a black player of Ghanaian descent. It was a clearly racist heckling—an issue that has publicly plagued the international sport in various venues, even as recently as last week. But this time, the response from the crowd far outshined the racist in the stands.

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Syrian swimmer Yusra Mardini.

For Yusra Mardini, swimming means life. In more ways than one.

What started out as a passion became a saving grace, then a claim to fame, and finally … a higher purpose. As her story became a symbol of hope for refugees, it is clear that Mardini’s real superpower isn’t swimming, it’s resilience.

In 2015, when Mardini was only a teenager, her very survival depended on her ability to swim.

Mardini and her sister spent their childhood being trained in the pool by their father Ezzat, a former competitor for Syria’s national swimming team. But the daily shootouts during the Syrian civil war forced training to come to a stop. And after their father was arrested and beaten by soldiers, it was clear the sisters would have to flee their home.

It was by no means an easy journey.

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Many elite athletes are afraid to tell anyone they are pregnant.

Pregnancy is, without a doubt, one of the most amazing physical feats on Earth. A body that builds a baby practically from scratch is badass no matter how you look at it, but unfortunately, it's not always treated that way.

That can be particularly true in fields that focus on peak body performance, such as elite sports.

Professional female athletes are often put in the position of having to choose between their athletic career and starting a family, not merely due to the inherent reality of having kids, but due to unnecessary roadblocks imposed upon them by the powers that be.

Elite track and field star Allyson Felix famously beat Usain Bolt's gold medal count record a mere 10 months after having a baby—prematurely, via emergency c-section after experiencing pre-eclampsia, no less. She also famously took Nike to task for trying to cut her pay by 70% during her pregnancy. Her critique, along with a push from other female athletes and outcry from the public, resulted in Nike creating a new maternity policy for sponsored athletes guaranteeing an athlete’s pay and bonuses for 18 months around pregnancy.

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The kiss cam caught the real winner of the game.

What is it about those kiss cams at sports games that somehow manage to capture hysterical, bizarre and utterly embarrassing life moments? To think about how all the planets have to align for that to happen can be mind-boggling. Is it simply bad luck? Or is the kiss cam an instrument of karma itself? It’s a mystery yet to be solved…

But when that camera captures something truly heartwarming, it can connect us all to joy, even if that moment isn’t truly “ours.” They say both watching and playing a sport feels the same way in our brain, after all. Maybe that extends to everything that happens at the game.

One particularly epic story might be the MVP of kiss-cam history, as the crowd got to witness an Orlando Magic fan getting the surprise of a lifetime.

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