Terminally-ill rugby player carried across marathon finish line by his best mate
There wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd when best friends Rob Burrow and Kevin Sinfield crossed the finish line of the inaugural Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon.
The two Leeds Rhinos players have been raising money and awareness for people with Motor Neurone Disease since Burrow’s 2019 diagnosis, with the two raising an impressive total in the millions.
And now, the pair have raised spirits and warmed hearts with Sinfield’s act at the end of their Leeds race, when he picked Burrow up from his chair and carried him over the finishing line. Before that, Sinfield had been pushing Burrow’s chair for 26.2 miles (42.2 km).
The moment was met with cheering and applause as the wo concluded their marathon just after the 4 hour 22 minute mark, both from those who were there to witness it in person and from those who saw footage later when it circulated online.
One Twitter user even went on to dub Burrow an “absolute gem of a human”, while another was certain that they were a “pair of absolute heroes”.
“What a mate! Unbelievable in a world full of cr*p at the moment there are some genuinely lovely moments. These lads have been into battle together on the pitch for club and country,” one wrote. “It’s choked me up, I’m not going to lie.”
“A bunch of legends,” someone else declared. “I’ve properly welled up watching this, this is what friendship is, to the ends of the earth and back.”
Prior to the event, Sinfield had spoken about the race to The Sun, and its 12,500 reported participants, as well as the thousands lining the streets to watch, and what it meant to be undertaking the marathon together.
“Even if it was just Rob and I, we’d have a great time,” he said, “there’s no better way to do it than with your mate. The fact people want to share in it and do their own little bit is incredible.
“This will be with mates, for mates and alongside mates, absolutely. Look across the world at big cities where marathons are run, there’s nothing like this.
“We’ve not done any training. We ran a 10km together last July and that’s part of the challenge, doing something neither of us have done before. The unknown adds to the fun of it.
“He’s in a custom-made chair but it could be a bumpy ride. I’ll try and find him the safest, comfiest route but if there are hills, there are hills. If it rains, it rains.”
And as Burrow himself said to The Guardian, when asked about the seven marathons in seven days that Sinfield had run on behalf of Burrow, his family, and their fight against MND, “we all need a friend like Kevin.”
Images: Getty