SHE scrambled forward on all fours, her crooked body wracked with pain as saliva drooled freely — but Hyvon Ngetich’s gaze never wavered from her target, the finish line.
For more than 50 metres, the Kenyan runner was urged on by medical staff, one of whom tailed behind while pushing a wheelchair in case her body quit even if her heart never would.
Ngetich had been leading the Austin Marathon at the 37-kilometre mark before she gradually fell behind and then down.
But her sheer persistence in crawling over the line earned her third place — just three seconds behind runner-up Hannah Steffan, who passed her only two metres from the finish.
Her courage inspired race director John Conley to adjust Ngetich’s prizemoney so that she received the same amount as Steffan.
“You ran the bravest race and crawled the bravest crawl I have ever seen in my life,” Conley told Ngetich. “You have earned much honour.
“What we saw was a champion. The toughest person on the planet.”
The race over, Ngetich accepted a seat in the wheelchair and said she didn’t remember anything from the last two kilometres. Still, she had no regrets.
“Running, always, you have to keep going, going. You have to die running,” she said.
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