Cross country runner disqualified when she came to the aid of fallen competitor

In the end, the wins and losses don’t matter in sports.

That’s particularly true when it comes to the health of an opponent. And that’s why it’s cool to recognize someone like Liana Blomgren, a cross country runner in Mountain Lake High School in Minnesota.

KARE-TV shared the story of Blomgren helping a fellow runner who had collapsed in October during a sectional race.

As the following video shows, Gracie Bucher is an eighth grader at Windom, and she was struggling to finish the race. After falling multiple times, Blomgren came along and helped Bucher up and get to the finish line. That is against the rules, and both were disqualified.

As a reader noted, it seems odd that a race official or coach didn't help Bucher, who might have had a more serious medical problem. But Blomgren didn't hesitate despite knowing that she would be penalized.

KARE reported that Bucher was later taken to the hospital and diagnosed with mononucleosis. After getting out of the hospital, Bucher met with Blomgren and gave her a Dairy Queen gift card (DQ) “because I got her DQ’d.”

This is really a great, great story:

This story was originally published December 1, 2016 at 3:06 PM.