At 10 minutes to seven on a dark, cool evening in Mexico City in 1968, John Stephen Akwari of Tanzania painfully hobbled into the Olympic Stadium – the last man to finish the marathon. The winner had already been crowned, and the victory ceremony was long finished. So the stadium was almost empty and Akwari – alone, his leg bloody and bandaged – struggled to circle the track to the finish line.
When asked why he had continued the grueling struggle, the young man from Tanzania answered softly: “My country did not send me 9,000 miles to start the race. They sent me 9,000 miles to finish the race.”