“Unforgettable displays of sportsmanship” at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris honored.
Some of the most memorable moments at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris weren’t about setting records or winning medals.
Instead, they were seen as showcasing the fundamental values of not just athletic competition, but also everyday life.
Those values are defined as “fair competition, respect, friendship, team spirit, equality, sport without doping, respect for written and unwritten rules such as integrity, solidarity, tolerance, care, excellence and joy.”
That’s according to the International Fair Play Committee, established decades ago by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization along with international sports organizations designed to bring the public’s attention to examples of those values in action.
This week, the Switzerland-based International Olympic Committee celebrated the three “Fair Play” award winners from last year’s Paris Games, all recognized for what the IOC called “their unforgettable displays of sportsmanship.”
The winners are:
- Sander Skotheim. The Norwegian decathlete kept competing after being eliminated from medal contention for failing to clear a vault. He ran in the final event in the men’s decathlon, the 1,500 meter race, to support teammate Markus Rooth, who won the gold medal.
- The German Olympic Sports Confederation. Germany’s national Olympic committee and the country’s rowing federation loaned a boat to a top rival, Belarusian single-sculls rower Yauheni Zalaty, after his boat was held up in customs. Germany’s Oliver Zeidler won gold in men’s single-scull rowing, but Zalaty, who was competing as a neutral athlete due to his country’s role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, took silver in the borrowed boat.
- Antonio “Tony” Rojas. The DJ at the Eiffel Tower Stadium is being called “The Peacemaker” after helping to calm tensions between beach volleyball players Ana Patrícia Silva Ramos of Brazil and Brandie Wilkerson of Canada during their final match. How? Rojas played John Lennon’s classic peace anthem, “Imagine,” sparking a sing-along by spectators. Brazil went on to win the gold.
Their efforts demonstrate “that fair play is not just an ideal, but a tangible, powerful force in sport,” the president of the International Fair Play Committee, Sunil Sabharwal, said in a statement.
“Whether through an act of sacrifice, a musical moment of peace, or simply extending a helping hand to a competitor, these honorees prove that character is the highest medal a person can win,” Sabharwal said.
The awards have been given out since 1965, when an Italian bobsledder, Eugenio Monti, was honored for stepping up to help a British competitor, Tony Nash, during the two-man bobsled final at the Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria, a year earlier.
Monti, considered one of the world’s best bobsledders, gave Nash a replacement for a broken bolt on the British bobsled. Nash got the gold medal that year, but at the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble, France, Monti won his first — and second — Olympic gold medals at age 40.
The new sliding track built for the next Olympics, the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy, is located on the site of the historic track named after Monti, used during the 1956 Winter Games.
Category: General Sports
