Yesterday was one of those days that once again illustrates how people have zero chill, and today’s first example is the story of the Hahner twins from Germany.
It’s a pretty epic achievement to run the women’s marathon in Rio together, so the 26-year-olds decided to cross the line hand in hand.
They took 81st and 82nd spot, Anna pipping Lisa by a single second. Feel-good story, right?
Wrong, because back home in Germany people turned nasty. Here’s Huffington Post:
“If the Hahners jointly want to cross the finish line, beaming and holding hands, then they can ― in the countryside home run in St. Pölten or the Miss-Braided run in Solingen,” said German sports columnist Lars Wallrodt.
Thomas Kurschilgen, sports director of the German Athletics Federation, expressed similar anger, implying that the twins might have intentionally given less than 100 percent so they could hold hands, or something.
“The Hahner twins, Lisa and Anna, ended their Olympic marathon race more than 21 minutes behind the winner, [and] more than 15 minutes [off] their best performance, [in positions] 81 and 82,” he said. “It looked as though they completed a fun run and not [an] Olympic [race].”
“Their main aim was to generate media attention,” he later told The New York Times. “That is what we criticize [sic].”
It’s tough to know where to begin with a response to this, other than to have a go at Germans for not understanding some fundamentals about the Olympic spirit and comaraderie.
Perhaps we’ll just go with the Hahner twins own response:
“Number 81 and 82. Definitely not what we had hoped for. Were we satisfied? No. Crossing the finish line was nevertheless one of our greatest sporting moments,” they wrote in German. “All those who have no interest in our page are welcome to unlike it.”
In case you’re wondering the answer is no, neither Lars nor Thomas have ever competed in the Olympic marathon, with or without twin in tow.
Those Germans, hey…
[source:huffpost]
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