Tales of heroism and endurance

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“Endurance is the ultimate virtue/ more, the essential thread on which existence is strung when one is stripped to nothing else, and not to endure is to end in despair.” We have heard story after story of athletes who endured till the end and finished or even won the race/or event. Here is one from the 1968 Olympics that I wanted to share though some of you may have heard it before. Akhwari the marathon runner from Tanzania was one of the four athletes the country sent to the Olympics. The terrain was difficult and 18 of the 75 runners pulled out. Many of the runners were jostling for space at the 21 km mark and fell along the wayside, Akhwari also fell he had dislocated his knee and injured his shoulders badly. The doctors told him to pull out but he refused to do so. They had no option but to help him , they bandaged his leg heavily and treated his shoulder. Akhwari found himself excruciating pain with each step he took. The athletes had finished the events for the day and it was getting dark and people were leaving the stadium when announcement came on the public address system. that there was still one athlete to finish the race. Akhwari came into the stadium for his final lap one hour after the man who took the first position in the same race, the crowd winced in pain when they saw him take each step.. He finally finished his race and the stadium thundered with applause. The media asked him why he wanted to finish the race in such pain. His answer was “My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race. They sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.” I found this story so inspiring and wanted to share it with you.. are you inspired to do what you started from this story?