Teen crawls to finish on broken leg
A Japanese teenage runner’s courage has hit headlines after she crawled more than 200 metres to the finish of her relay, with a broken and bloodied leg.
Rei Iida, 19, crawled the last 200 metres to the handover during the corporate relay race after falling and fracturing her right leg.
She has since been praised for her never-say-die spirit.
The university student was competing for the Iwatani Sangyo corporate ‘‘ekiden’’ relay marathon team.
She tripped and fell towards the end of her stretch of the 42-kilometre race.
Footage aired on Japanese television showing Iida being shepherded by a race marshal as she crawled along the tarmac in defiance.
Determined to finish, she ignored that her knees were bloodied and staining the white road markings.
‘‘She has a strong sense of responsibility’’, a spectator at the event told local Asahi newspaper. ‘‘I admire her and want to applaud her’’.
Race organisers were criticised at the time for not stopping the young woman, even though she reportedly insisted on finishing, The Telegraph UK reported.
Iida declined to stop when approached by officials.
After hearing Iida was injured, the manager of her team decided to pull the team out of the competition.
However, officials were unable to contact the head judge of the event and by the time the decision had been passed on, Iida was close to handing over the sash to the next runner, The Telegraph UK reported.
She was taken to a hospital after the race.