Teammate hold hands, share victory at Canadian U20 XC Championships

This is sportsmanship at its finest! Two competitors, who are teammates at Queen’s University, held hands as they crossed the finish line at the Canadian XC Championships to split the victory. When Jude Wheeler-Dee and Roman Mironov noticed they were first and second in the final 200m of the U20 8K race, instead of racing each other, they decided to share the win. 

When you think you’ve seen it all: teammates and roommates at Queens University Roman Mironov and Jude Wheeler-Dee beat the entire field at the #ACXC22 U20 men’s 8k and hold hands across the finish line. 🇨🇦🏆

📸 @Mundosportimg pic.twitter.com/ZLZqmGztF9

— Athletics Canada (@AthleticsCanada) November 26, 2022

The duo shared the finishing time of 25:13, but according to the results, Mironov was given top honours. 

Mironov and Wheeler-Dee are second-year students at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. They both helped the Gaels XC team win bronze at the 2022 U Sports Championships earlier this month. The bond of the speedy duo goes further than being XC teammates—they are also roommates in Kingston.

In a post-race interview, Mironov and Wheeler-Dee said jokingly that they planned to do this for weeks. “After we trained together all season, used the same toothpaste and body wash, we might as well win together,” laughed Mironov.

We will assume that only Mironov, Wheeler-Dee and maybe their coach, Mark Bomba, know which athlete would have won in a 200m sprint.

This moment reminds track and field fans of the shared high jump gold at the 2020 Olympics between Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy and Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar.

In the U20 women’s 6K race, Erin Vringer of Saint John, N.B., led the race from start to finish and crossed the finish line 58 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher. 

Vringer is a first-year student in the track and cross country program at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Her victory will earn her a spot on the Canadian U20 Team at the World XC Championships in Bathurst, Australia, in February 2023. 

Earlier Saturday morning, Connor Black and Julie-Anne Staehli took the wins in the men’s and women’s open 10K races, with Tokyo 2020 Olympian John Gay and 2022 U Sports champion Max Turek rounding out the men’s podium; Olympian Natalia Hawthorn and Katelyn Ayers were second and third in the women’s race.