Award-winning act? Nahuel Carabaña earns applause for sportsmanship at European Championships

Andorran runner Nahuel Carabaña is being hailed for a sublime act of sportsmanship at the 2022 European Athletics Championships in Munich.

Carabaña stopped during the first heat of the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase Tuesday to assist two-time Danish champion Axel Vang Christensen, who fell to the track after hitting a barrier. Although Carabaña eventually resumed his race, he finished last, more than a minute behind the qualifiers for the final and 40 seconds behind the 15th-place finisher. And yet he got a standing ovation from the audience in the Olympiastadion for his heartwarming move.

European Athletics tweeted, “Sportsmanship at its very finest.” Also on Twitter, 1992 Olympic champion Linford Christie of Great Britain chimed in, “Now this deserves an award.”

Carabaña, 22, has definitely put himself in the running for the Pierre de Coubertin World Trophy, which is awarded by the International Fair Play Committee to an athlete or team for an act of fair play.

Carabaña, the U23 European bronze medalist, told Olympics.com, “I saw that the guy had a heavy hit against the barrier. I think he hurt his leg or his ankle, and he couldn’t even move. I was about to carry on, but something inside me said, ‘I need to help him out and move him before the other runners return.’ He couldn’t move at all and they might have run over him. So while I was thinking of this, my body automatically turned back and I decided to help him.”

Christensen was leading the 17-man field at the 5:30 mark of the race when he smacked into the barrier and tumbled forward onto the track. On the left side of the race video, his name dropped lower and lower in the standings as he lay on his back in agony and the other runners maneuvered around him.

But not everyone in the field left the fallen man behind. Carabaña stopped, turned around and went a few steps back. He reached out a hand to help Christensen get up, but the 18-year-old Dane shook his head and stayed seated on the track. Carabaña knelt down to talk to him, then stood and moved behind the injured runner. He grabbed Christensen by the shoulders to drag him away from the inner lanes of the track as the Dane scooted back. As Carabaña set off again, 250 meters behind the leaders, medical staff finally approached Christensen to aid him.

“Up to that moment I didn’t even know which country he was from,” Carabaña said. “I didn’t know who he was and I just wanted to help him. I tried to lift him up and carry him out of the track because he was in a lot of pain.”

Osama Zoghlami of Italy won the heat with a time of 8:30.67 while Carabaña’s time was 9:37.74. His personal best is 8:32.03, the Andorran national record which he set in May.

Christensen was taken from the track on a stretcher and underwent scans at a local hospital.

Although an athlete impeded by another athlete in an early round is sometimes advanced to the next round, Carabaña’s act of selflessness apparently marked the end of the road for him at the European Championships.

The Andorran, who ran the last 1,000 meters alone, said the applause as he finished the race made him “very happy.”

“I know that today I wasn’t fully fit and wasn’t my day,” Carabaña said, “but to be able to help out someone is always a pleasure!”

Social media was also critical of medical staff taking so long to reach Christensen. “Any thoughts on why the trackside medical team seem to take so long to get to athletes?”