The recent Boston Marathon teaches us an important lesson at a divisive time - Matt Bromley
Marathons are having a moment. You’ll have heard the news that Kenyon athlete Sebastian Sawe broke the two-hour barrier in the London Marathon, crossing the finish line in 1 hour 59 minutes and 30 seconds. Sawe’s feat must surely stand alongside Roger Bannister’s sub-four-minute mile and Usain Bolt’s 100m world record of 9.58 seconds.
Sawe broke the previous record set by Kelvin Kiptum at the April event – and he wasn’t the only one. Hot on Sawe’s heels, Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha finished just 11 seconds back in his debut, and Jacob Kiplimo ran it in 2 hours 28 seconds.
But it’s the Boston Marathon that really captured my attention when a pair of runners teamed up to help a fellow athlete cross the finish line. 21-year-old university student Ajay Haridasse stumbled after passing the 26-mile mark in the Massachusetts race and, after falling for a fourth time, was ready to crawl to the finish. But Aaron Beggs, a 40-year-old from Northern Ireland, appeared on his left side, followed by Robson De Oliveira, a 36-year-old from Brazil, on his right. Beggs and De Oliveira carried Haridasse the remainder of the way and they all crossed the line together.
It’s heartening to hear tales of humanity and kindness when it seems the world is on fire. When headlines are dominated by conflict, by the ceaseless drumbeat of grievance and division, such moments feel almost radical in their simplicity. Three men, from three different continents, bound not by language, creed, or politics, but by a shared act of decency. No speeches, no slogans, no grandstanding; just the instinct to help.
And yet, perhaps that is precisely the point: kindness, unlike conflict, rarely announces itself; it does not trend, it does not provoke, it does not demand allegiance. It simply happens in the space between the noise. The Boston Marathon offered us not just a sporting story, but a parable for our times: that even at the point of individual ambition – a moment of personal endurance, of private struggle – we remain, irreducibly, social beings. We lift one another up.
A marathon is, by design, an individual pursuit. And yet a community emerges. Strangers cheer on strangers. Volunteers hand out water. And, occasionally, as in Boston, runners sacrifice their own time, their own achievement, to ensure that someone else can finish at all. Contrast this with the prevailing narratives that shape our public discourse. We are told, repeatedly, that difference is dangerous, that identity is a battleground, that the world is a zero-sum contest in which one person’s gain must be another’s loss. It’s a seductive story, not least because it simplifies a complex world into neat binaries: us and them, winners and losers, strength and weakness.
It’s tempting, of course, to dismiss such moments as anomalies: heartwarming, yes, but ultimately insignificant against the scale of global events. Yet that would be to misunderstand how societies are sustained. They are not held together by grand declarations or political theatre alone, but by the cumulative weight of small, everyday acts of consideration. The willingness to pause, to notice, to intervene.
The Boston story reminds us that, beneath the surface of our disagreements, there remains a deep reservoir of goodwill.
Matt Bromley is CEO of bee and chair of the Building Equity in Education campaign.