Moving: Olympic winner has duplicate gold medal made to honour rival

by Adeniyi Abdul

Score one for sportsmanship. Hungarian swimmer and recent Olympic champion Daniel Gyurta has revealed that he will be honouring a fallen rival in a very special way.

Gyurta who won the gold medal for the men’s 200-meter breaststroke and set a new world at the London Games last week, has announced that he will be getting a replica of his gold medal made in memory of Norwegian swimmer Alexander Dale Oen who died earlier this year.

Oen died from cardiac arrest at the age of 26 during a pre-Olympics training session. His autopsy revealed that he had suffered from heart disease. He was one of the favorites to win the 100m and 200m breaststroke events at the London Olympics, after winning the 100m breaststroke at the world championships less than a year before his death.

“We became very good friends this year,” Gyurta said. “I’m sure that he would have won the 100m here in London. This is the least I can do to pay respect to my friend.”

Per Rune Eknes, head of Norway’s swimming federation, described the 23-year-old Hungarian’s act of sportsmanship as, “Great!”

“This is fantastic,” Eknes said.

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