Winners seldom go sans applause; losers are almost never celebrated, and almost always forgotten.

An unsung, hitherto unknown, sportswoman from a landlocked Himalayan nation on her first Olympics quest changed that on the last day of the Paris Games on Sunday.

She was the last athlete to finish Sunday’s women’s marathon, an hour and a half after the winner, but she lumbered on to the end to a standing ovation in a rare display of pride, grit and endurance.

Bhutan’s Kinzang Lhamo finished the hilly and hot course in three hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds, encouraged over the last kilometres by spectators cycling and running alongside her on a sunny Paris morning.

In willing herself to finish the entire 26.2-mile course of the marathon, Lhamo, 26, wittingly or unwittingly came to embody how Pierre de Coubertin, a French man of letters also widely referred to as the father of the modern Olympics, had summed up the credo of the Games: “The important thing in the Olympics is not winning but taking part.”

As Lhamo hit the home straight, fans in the stands in front of the Invalides monument got to their feet to cheer her on. She crossed the finish line as the 80th woman to complete the course.

Lhamo was participating in her first international competition, and was the Himalayan nation’s flagbearer at the opening ceremony.

An ultramarathon specialist, Lhamo came second in 2022 in the Snowman Race, an
extreme event covering 203km through the Himalayan mountains. She took up running after joining Bhutan’s army.

The Olympics was initially conceived as a competition open to all sporting amateurs, though the reality has long since moved on with most participants now professional athletes.

Bhutan had sent a three-member sports delegation to the Paris Olympics: Lhamo was the only woman. The men competed in archery and swimming; Lhamo in the marathon. Bhutan is yet to win an Olympic medal. But Lhamo did better, winning hearts.

Written from a Reuters report