There was a couple of days ago a running competition participated by young teens. All of them are with grave physical diminution, most with crutches, with prosthesis for the missing limbs or with some extremities amputated, or with sensorial difficulties. And they all doing their best they could running towards a long and brilliantly red rope at the other end of the sports field. Whoever reached and touched that red line first would be the winner. Then ...
When one of the boys was just getting to merely inches from the red line, arms stretched out to touch it, heard the cry from the spectators, and noticed - so did all the others present - that another runner, more laggard, more disabled and with severer problems of mobility, had fallen obstreperously to the ground and was screaming with pain, mostly also of fury as he had tried so very hard to have almost got to the red line too. Then ... a miracle happened.
A fantastic rarity, oddity, totally uncommon and unexpected - the boy that was about to 'cut' the red line with his hands and proclaim himself winner, stopped. So did the rest of the enthusiastic and hopeful runners too. Those who were in front of the fallen boy turned back; those who were way behind now hastened their run, and all ran towards the boy on the ground to help him. Between all of them, they got the boy up and, together, much slower this time, they made their way towards the red line and hand in hand, crossed it together.
This race didn't have a winner. The boys showed the world that they were all winners.
Later on television, Mele, the banker who sponsored the competition, together with Buenafuente of the Sexta, said: 'In this world we all go about with crutches. We all need each other. It's not a matter of who gets to be the 1st, it's that we should all get there.'
That's the kind of bankers we need. And those boys are examples of wisdom, humanity and compassion.
Tags: competitionrace, winners
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