I’ve always been a sports junky, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve begun to lose interest.  It isn’t that I find the sports themselves less interesting it’s that I find the athletes less compelling and quite frankly I think ESPN has killed the sports star.

But just when I think I’m ready to throw in the towel I read stories like this one that ran in the Washington Post and was posted by bookofjoe. It is nice to know that even in the over-hyped and completely crass events like the Winter Olympics a flicker of that which can make sport majestic still appears. Here’s a sample:

Sara Renner was skiing the cross-country race of her life when she looked down at her pole and saw it had snapped.

She flailed and struggled uphill as the field passed her in seconds.

And then something happened, maybe the most serendipitous, skin-tingling moment of the 20th Winter Games.

Another pole.

Out of nowhere.

Given to her by a person she would call "my mystery man."

Renner was back in the team sprint relay final, trying for her first medal in three Olympics, thanks to a stranger.

The stranger turned out not to be Canadian.

Bjornar Hakensmoen is the Norwegian cross-country coach.

His skier had just passed Renner and was now in medal contention.

He didn’t think twice about helping a competitor.

"Winning is not everything in sport," Hakensmoen said.

"What win is that, if you achieve your goal but don’t help somebody when you should have helped them?"

Hakensmoen is genuinely surprised people even want to talk to him about his deed.

"I was just helping a girl who was in big trouble. If you saw her, you would do the same."

Sadly I can’t picture Bonds, Sosa, Iverson, Jordan, Kobe, Gretzky, Lemieux, Manning, Gruden, Coach K, Larry Brown, Roy Williams, Gibbs, McEnroe, etc. doing the same.  Can you?