Thursday, August 12, 2021
Parchment’s bumpy road to gold
Olympic champion because the helper paid for a taxi
Hansle Parchment is Olympic champion – he almost screwed up the way to the stadium. He takes the wrong bus and can only pay for the necessary taxi to the stadium thanks to a volunteer helper. Now he meets her again, has presents and his country Jamaica also wants to return the favor.
The gold medal winner of the Olympic Games over 110 meter hurdles had a very special guardian angel. Without a volunteer, Hansle Parchment couldn’t call himself Olympic champion. Then he would not have even been in the final in the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, but would have had to look at it from the outside – probably full of self-hatred.
The 31-year-old Jamaican tells his story in a video on Instagram: Before the semifinals, he got on the wrong bus in the Olympic Village. Instead of going to the athletes, he apparently went to an arena for water sports enthusiasts. He was unable to organize an official vehicle that could have brought him to the stadium. “These people are very strict and obey the rules and I should have booked the car in advance to drive me,” Parchment said in the video. The drive back to the Olympic Village to start again with the correct bus would have taken too long. The hurdle sprinter was also not prepared for suddenly having to use a taxi or anything else: he had no money for a ticket with him.
But then he found his personal guardian angel named Tiana, he says. He saw the volunteer and asked her for help, but she wasn’t allowed to do much. But one thing: “She actually gave me some money to take one of the taxis. That way I could warm up in time and had enough time for the competition.” He finished his semifinals in second, making it into the final – and taking gold. The longed-for gold to London 2012, where he won bronze, and the missed games of Rio 2016.
“Really? You got it?”
It would be a wonderful story, but it goes even further. Parchment found Tiana. He thanked her, showed her the gold medal, gave her a Jamaican Olympic jersey, and paid her back the money she had lent him. “Really? You got it?” Says the woman in the video, excited and incredulous. “You helped me get into the final that day,” says Parchment, taking another selfie with her.
Even more could be expected of the surprised helper. The Sunday Gleaner newspaper reports that the Jamaican Minister of Tourism would like to invite you to a trip to the Caribbean island. “No matter where in the world it is, we want to return the favor for the kindness that one shows one of our compatriots,” said Edmund Bartlett the paper. Tiana certainly hadn’t expected that when she applied to volunteer for the Olympic Games.
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