4.7 • 13K Ratings
🗓️ 28 July 2025
⏱️ 4 minutes
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The extraordinary story of two Olympics-prize-winners Japanese pole vaulters is a testament to the power of friendship—and also a great reminder that if we don't like the decisions being made around us, we may, with our own ingenuity and initiative, be able to find a different outcome.
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1:01.8 | Lemonada |
1:08.0 | I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is a little happier. |
1:13.1 | I recently heard an extraordinary story about friendship from almost 90 years ago. In the Summer Olympics of 1936, in the men's pole vault event, three men tied for second |
1:21.5 | place. To determine who would be awarded the silver and bronze medals, a jump-off was held. |
1:30.5 | The first vulture failed to better his score. |
1:33.9 | The remaining two were a pair of vultors from Japan, |
1:40.3 | Shuhay Nishida and Sueo Owe, two teammates who were very good friends. |
1:48.5 | To everyone's amazement, they declined to compete against each other and instead asked to share the honor. |
1:58.9 | But their request was rejected, and the Japanese team was told to make its own decision about who should receive the silver and who should receive the bronze. The team awarded the silver to Nishita because he'd cleared the |
2:03.1 | height in fewer attempts. When the two competitors returned home to Japan, they went to a jeweler |
2:09.5 | to have the two medals cut in half and the different halves fused together so that they each |
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