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  • Written by: Jo

Running a marathon is tough. It can take months of training and preparation, years of plucking up the courage and it all comes down to that one moment where you cross the finish line and realise you’ve done it.

It takes an extraordinary person to give up all that hard work and commitment to training and achieving that personal best, to stop and help someone struggling to remain on their feet less than 200m from the finish line. But that’s just what Matthew Rees did, when he saw David Wyeth suffering from severe exhaustion at the point of collapse just metres from the finish line.

Mr Rees was about to complete the final stretch of the London Marathon in April 2017, when he saw Mr Wyeth struggling to remain on his feet and realized that he would be unable to complete the marathon on his own. With a few quick words of encouragement and ignoring the pleas of David not to sacrifice his own race for him, Mr Rees pulled the exhausted runner up and supported him down the final stretch and across the finish line with the help of another volunteer.

Both men still completed the race within 2 hours, 52 mintues and 26 seconds, which still put them within the top 1000 runners.

The pictures of these two men crossing the finish line together have become iconic, with many heralding this act of kindness as one of the best moments of the London marathon.

The two men have now become friends and they plan to run more races together in the future. 

Source: BBC News