‘I wanted him to finish with dignity’

Justin Wadsworth knew Anton Gafarov, or at least knew who he was. He had seen him around cross-country skiing World Cups at various competitions, knew he was Russian, a pretty good sprinter. Nothing more, though. They had never spoken.

So Wadsworth, a coach with the Canadian cross-country team, knew it was Anton Gafarov he was watching thrash helplessly, one ski mangled and twisted and breaking apart. On Tuesday, in a men’s sprint qualifier, Gafarov had fallen and his ski had snapped. He rose to his feet and pulled himself up a hill, slowly and awkwardly, with his arms and his poles. The rest of the blade split on the downhill and he fell again. He was racing in the Olympics on home soil. He got up again.

Wadsworth was holding a ski for his own guy, Alex Harvey, but Canada’s skiers were already out. He was a couple of deep snowbanks above Gafarov. There were Russian coaches around, but none of them had skis. Gafarov was flailing away, a wounded bird. Justin Wadsworth scrambled over a snowbank.

“I really felt like, at that point, in front of his home crowd, I just wanted him to finish the race with dignity,” said Wadsworth.

As of late Tuesday night, Wadsworth hadn’t heard from the Russian skier, who finished 20th in his 85-man preliminary qualifying heat, 7.75 seconds off the pace. Gafarov finished second in his quarter-final and sixth in the semifinal. He did not qualify for the six-man final in the sprint, but he got a chance.