Today we look back at the 2013 European Cup Race Walking in Dudince, where Russians Nikolay Markov and Pavel Parshin crossed the finished line hand in hand.
At the heart of any major sporting event is that competitive desire to be the best, to be at the top of the podium.
But then something happens to make you realise how sport can bond people together, and that perhaps winning is not everything.
On Sunday May 19 in Dudince, Slovakia, European Athletics staged the European Cup Race Walking and the event became a day of virtual domination for Russian athletes.
The nation won four of the five individual races and all the team events but when this competition is talked about in the years ahead, the best memory might not be about who ended up as the individual champions.
The reason was the extraordinary finish to the men’s 10km junior race.
Throughout the 41 minutes of walking, Russians Nikolay Markov and Pavel Parshin had been side by side at the front of the field.
They could not be separated, and that still was the case as they headed towards the finish line.
Who would make the break?
As the tape was put across to hail the winner, incredibly the pair held hands, Markov on the right, Parshin on the left.
Together they felt it was only right that the race should be tied.
And tied they were when the digits read 41:13 – except electronic timing is such in this modern world of athletics that the clock could actually find the slightest of difference between them on that final stride.
Parshin was given gold by a 10th of a second.
Instantly thoughts were turned back to 1981 and the first staging of the London Marathon as the scene was similar to that of Dudince more than three decades later.
Then Dick Beardsley, of the USA, and Inge Simonsen, of Norway, were in the final stages of the 26.2 miles. As the line approached, they too held hands and were recorded as joint-winners.
That show of sportsmanship did wonders because it proved that at the essence of high-level competition, there can be room for camaraderie and equal respect for how a rival has performed.
The two youngsters - Parshin is 19, Markov is 18 - would have won many friends in the sporting world for their gesture.
Even though Parshin was given gold, he said: “We are great friends in and out of training, and we wanted this to be a joint win. It doesn’t matter; we know what we wanted to do.”
Italy’s Vito Minei was 13 seconds behind them in third on a day when Russia took their individual gold medal tally from the senior events to 16 since this European Cup Race Walking was first staged in La Coruna in 1996.
The men’s senior 20km was a close and dramatic race, too, with Denis Strelkov winning gold for Russia in 1:21:40 from Miguel Angel Lopez, of Spain, who was second in 1:21:48 with Slovakia’s Matej Toth giving the home crowd some cheer in third in 1:21:51.
It was a thrilling finish as Strelkov held on in the end after his 35-second lead had been cut down. On the final two laps, Lopez and Toth increased their speed but the Russian had just enough.
Frenchman Yohann Diniz is one of Europe’s leading walkers and his victory in the 50km prevented the Russian clean-sweep.
The gold medallist at the European Athletics Championships in Göteborg in 2006 and Barcelona in 2010 triumphed in some style here as he won a European Cup Race Walking title for a second time. “I seem to be inspired by European competition,” he said.
He won by over three minutes in 3:41:07 from Mikhail Ryzhov, of Russia, in 3:44:41 with his teammate Ivan Noskov third in 3:45:31.
Anisya Kirdyapkina, the European silver medallist from Barcelona, once more finished ahead of the woman who won bronze behind her in Spain, Russian Vera Sokolova.
Kirdyapkina was first in the 20km race in 1:28:39 from Sokolova in 1:29:18 with her Russian teammate Marina Pandakova third in 1:29:25.
Ekaterina Medvedeva took gold in the junior race in 44:45 from fellow Russian Nadezhda Leontyeva who was second in 46:14 ahead of Anezka Drahotova, of the Czech Republic, third in 46:29.
But Russia were the dominant force in the team events, winning all five and taking the combined team gold with 44 points from the Ukraine with 166 and Spain with 177 on a day when two junior men showed sporting spirit at its finest.