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Joy

Facing a tiebreaker, Olympians asked if they could share a gold medal. Pure joy ensued.

@peacockTV/Twitter

Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy's Gianmarco Tamberi celebrate sharing the gold medal in high jump.

When Qatar's Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy's Gianmarco Tamberi both landed their high jumps at 2.37 meters, they were in the battle for Olympic gold. But when both jumpers missed the next mark—the Olympic record of 2.39 meters—three times each, they were officially tied for first place.

In such a tie, the athletes would usually do a "jump-off" to determine who wins gold and who wins silver. But as the official began to explain the options to Barshim and Tamberi, Barshim asked, "Can we have two golds?"


"It's possible," the official responded. "It depends, if you both decide..." And before he'd even told them how sharing the gold would work, the two jumpers looked at each other, nodded, and then launched into a wholesome and joyful celebration guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.

Just watch:

(If you are unable to view the video above, check it out on NBC's YouTube channel here.)

The two jumpers have been competing against one another for more than a decade and are friends on and off the field, so getting to share the gold is a win-win—literally—for both of them. It's also a historic choice. According to the BBC, the last time competing track and field Olympians shared the gold medal podium was in 1912.

The friendship and camaraderie between the two athletes are palpable and their immediate decision to share the gold truly embodies the Olympic spirit.

"I look at him, he looks at me, and we know it," Barshim said, according to the CBC. "We just look at each other and we know, that is it, it is done. There is no need."

"He is one of my best friends," he added, "not only on the track, but outside the track. We work together. This is a dream come true. It is the true spirit, the sportsman spirit, and we are here delivering this message."

Barshim was the silver medalist in the event in the Rio 2016 Olympics, and Tamberi suffered a career-threatening injury prior to those games, which took him out of medal contention.

"After my injuries, I just wanted to come back," Tamberi told CNN. "But now I have this gold, it's incredible. I dreamed of this so many times. I was told in 2016 just before Rio, there was a risk I wouldn't be able to compete anymore. It's been a long journey."

What a beautiful display of sportsmanship, excellence, and genuine human connection. This is what the Olympics are all about. Love to see it.


This article originally appeared on 08.02.21

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A boy needed $126,000 for cancer treatment. This athlete sold his Olympic medal to help.

Poland's Piotr Malachowski is one of the world's top discus throwers.

He has a solid Olympic record. He won a silver medal in Beijing during the 2008 games, and is also the proud owner of the fifth-longest discus throw ever: 71.84 meters (FYI, that's really far).

But at the Rio Olympics, the competition was intense. If Malachowski wanted to take home a medal, it would be one of the biggest challenges of his life.

In the end, he was narrowly edged out by a German competitor for the gold in Rio. But still, he was plenty proud to take home another silver medal for his country.

Malachowski warms up. Photo by Ranck Fife/AFP/Getty Images.

Now a two-time Olympic medalist, Malachowski was flooded with congratulations and well wishes after his final throw.

But one letter of congratulations stood out to him because it was from a mother desperate for his help.

Her name was Goshia, Malachowski wrote, and her 3-year-old son, Olek, was suffering from a rare form of cancer known as retinoblastoma, or cancer of the eye.

Though the disease is treatable, Goshia wrote to Malachowski that the only way to save her son's eyesight was to take him to New York City for treatment by a top ophthalmologist. Needless to say, that would be far too expensive for her family to afford on its own.

When a child is gravely ill, there's almost nothing their parent wouldn't do .... including writing to Olympic athletes for help.

Malachowski proudly waves the Polish flag. Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images.

When Malachowski heard Olek's story, he knew the timing was "fate." He decided he had to help.

An organization called Siepomaga had already raised a significant amount of money for Olek's treatment, but there was a long way to go. The total fundraising goal was around $126,000.

So the Olympian ponied up the most valuable thing he owned — his most recent silver medal.

In a Facebook post, he told his followers he was putting his prized medal up for auction to cover the rest of the costs:

Zdobycie medalu olimpijskiego to dla sportowca spełnienie życiowych marzeń. Oczywiście najcenniejszy jest ten złoty....

Posted by Piotr Małachowski on Friday, August 19, 2016

"In Rio I fought for gold," he wrote. "Today I call on all people — let us fight together for something that is even more valuable. For the health of this fantastic boy."

The auction lasted only a few days before a wealthy brother and sister made Malachowski a private offer he couldn't refuse.

ESPN reported that the top bid for Piotr's medal was roughly $19,000 before the final offer came in. Though he didn't share the exact amount, Malachowski made it clear in another Facebook post that the final sale price was enough to cover the rest of Olek's treatment.

"Thank you everyone who took part in the auction," he wrote. "We were able to show that together we can make miracles. My silver medal today is worth much more than a week ago."

Malachowski's massively selfless act is only the beginning of this story. 3-year-old Olek still has a long fight ahead of him.

Hopefully, with the world's top doctors working tirelessly to treat his disease, he can come out on top. We're rooting for you, buddy.

And as for Malachowski himself, he may be down one medal. But after this priceless gift, he's certainly earned the right to be called the people's champion forever.

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Why one athlete ditched the U.S. Olympic team to make history for another country.

One of Jordin Andrade's earliest memories was watching his uncle Henry run in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Henry also played in the NFL briefly, but for 4-year-old Jordin, the Olympics was much more exciting. Because even though he was born in the U.S., Uncle Henry was one of four athletes on the first ever Olympic team from Cape Verde, a small island nation 300 miles off the west coast of Africa with a population of about 500,000 people. (It's also known as the Republic of Cabo Verde.)

The Andrade family — including Jordin's father, Joe — immigrated to the United States from Cape Verde in 1960, just two years before Uncle Henry was born. "This is an opportunity to represent me, my family, my people and my country," Henry told the L.A. Times that year. "Cape Verde is so small and so poor. The place needs a lot of giving."

"That was a big inspiration to me as a kid," Jordin said in an interview with Idaho's KTVB7. "'Wow, my bloodline has some athletics.'"

Photo by Pascal Rondeau/Allsport/Getty Images.

It took Jordin Andrade until his junior year of high school to follow in his uncle's footsteps, but he did.

During high school, he became passionate about track and field and enlisted his Uncle Henry as a training coach. After graduation, Andrade ran for a junior college in his native California before being recruited by Boise State, where he went on to top national rankings. He even set a school-wide record in the 400-meter hurdles during his senior year and ran a 49.24 at his last NCAA Championships that same year — well below the Olympic qualifying time of 49.4.

Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images.

Qualifying for the Olympics was one thing. But Andrade still had another hurdle to face: Which country should he run for?

"It was between what everybody wanted me to do and what I wanted to do," he told South Coast Today. "Everyone I associate myself with is from the U.S. and they wanted me to represent."

At the time, Andrade had never even visited his ancestral home in Cape Verde. But his mind was made up after visiting New Bedford, Massachusetts — a small whaling town with a large Cape Verdean population. The trip gave him an opportunity to meet and connect with great-aunts and uncles and cousins he'd never met. Even the Cape Verdean Prime Minister José Maria Neves greeted him on one of his East Coast trips.

"When I first came out there, I wasn’t expecting much," Andrade told South Coast Today. "I ended up getting a big standing ovation and I met a lot of people with a lot of connections."

"I chose Cape Verde because that’s my family."

Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images.

Andrade set off for Rio in 2016 as a representative of Cape Verde, and in his very first race he ... was disqualified before he finished.

It didn't matter that he finished the race with a qualifying time of 49.35 seconds — the judges claimed that he intentionally knocked over a hurdle in the last 50 meters, which was an automatic disqualification.

As you can imagine, Andrade was upset. And so was the entire country he was representing. "My phone hasn't stopped ringing, everyone wanted an explanation that I couldn't explain," he told KTVB7. "I had to sit in my room watching the clock, and prep my body as if I was running the next day just in case."

Cape Verde officials immediately filed an appeal, and what followed was eight tense hours of waiting and deliberation.

Eventually, the judges agreed to overturn their decision and reinstated Andrade as the sixth-place finisher in the race, making him the first Cape Verdean athlete ever to advance to the Olympic semifinals.

That might seem like a small feat compared to a gold medal. But that monumental moment was enough to make Cape Verdeans across the globe burst with pride:

While Andrade may not have advanced past the semifinals, he still achieved an incredible feat — for himself, and for his entire heritage.

Sure, Andrade could have run for the United States. But instead, he became a champion who brought hope to an entire culture — one that too often goes ignored.

"I'm really happy to represent a small country," he said. "I want to give them a voice and make sure that whole world can hear them. I finally get the opportunity to."

Congrats to Jordin Andrade and the entire Cape Verdean diaspora!

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When a woman realized her Uber driver was an Olympic dad, she decided to send him to Rio.

Ellis Hill had never driven his Uber across the river before.

Ellis Hill (right) and Liz Willock. Photo by Ellis Hill and Liz Willock/GoFundMe.

However, shuttling a passenger over the bridge to New Jersey was just the latest in a series of firsts for the Philadelphia resident in July. His son Darrell, a Penn State track and field star, had just made the U.S. Olympic team for shot put on his first try.

Ellis never really thought about joining him in Rio de Janeiro. Traveling to South America, he explained, was simply more than he could afford.

"It wasn't in the cards at all," Ellis told Upworthy. "I was thinking about getting a good bag of popcorn and sitting down to watch it on TV."

But his passenger on that Uber trip, Liz Willock, had other ideas.

"I was just crushed because any good parent would want to see their son or daughter compete as Olympian," Willock told Upworthy. "I said, 'Ellis, you're an Olympic father! You need to go.'"

Willock, who works for a company that transports medical patients to and from clinical trials, quickly realized she could use her professional connections and experience to fund and plan a trip to Rio for him.

After consulting with Ellis' son Darrell, Willock launched a GoFundMe campaign to send the Olympian's father to Rio.

The effort raised $8,200, easily exceeding its $7,500 goal.

Willock credits the efforts of dozens of strangers for helping make the fundraiser a success, including a United Airlines pilot who donated airline miles to cover Ellis' flight to Brazil and the family of Joe Kovacs, Darrell's teammate, who were the first to donate and plan to meet Ellis when he arrives in the city.

Ellis, who has never traveled out of the country before, said that he's "ecstatic" to have the opportunity to watch his son compete in the games.

"This is really a big deal in our family right now," he said.


Darrell's cheering section back home includes his mother, siblings, grandparents, and friends from all over the country — including Ellis' new colleagues at Uber, among whom he's become a celebrity.

Though he doesn't expect to see Darrell until after he competes, Ellis explained that getting to soak in his son's success is its own reward.

The Olympic rings in Rio. Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images.

"It's just an awesome experience for a kid to put forth the effort and stick to it over the years, and actually train ... and get it on the first time around," he said.

While he would be thrilled if Darrell were to come home with a medal, Ellis said he'll be impressed regardless.

"The family and friends are extremely happy, and we're just waiting for him to stay focused and put forth the best effort he possibly can for himself."

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