Mere moments after the most crushing experience of his athletic career, Jared Connaughton didn't hesitate for a second.
He stepped up, faced the nation and took responsibility for the miscue that cost Canada a historic bronze medal in the men's 4x100 metre relay Saturday in London. He posted this on his Twitter account: "I'm so sorry everyone. My heart is broken. I let my team down. I'm sorry."
Canada was buzzing about the grace and grit the 27-year-old sprinter had shown in taking the blame in a very public way.
But it wasn't surprising.
Jared and I both attended Bluefield High School in P.E.I., where he was one grade ahead of me.
I remember the afternoons when we spent the bus ride home - his a short hop away, mine over an hour - shooting the breeze about hockey.
But that wasn't his passion.
You see, all Jared Connaughton ever wanted to do was run. At the Olympics.
Right from the start, you saw the competitive fire. You saw the kind of passion that would overcome the things that usually distract teenagers from their goals. The kind of drive that ordinary people don't understand, and didn't.
Connaughton's bluntness in Saturday's post-race interview wasn't new. Even in the early days, when people began to realize he was something special, when some were calling him the next Donovan Bailey - he had no problem doing interviews and speaking his mind.
The Bailey thing didn't materialize, as Connaughton became a 200-metre specialist.
After terrorizing P.E.I. runners throughout high school, Jared went on to a stellar career at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Then he set his sights on his lifelong goal of running at the Olympics. He achieved that in Beijing four years ago, where he reached the semifinal in the 200 metres and was part of the 4x100 relay team that placed sixth.
This time around, Connaughton met the same fate in the 200 metres, losing out in a semifinal race in which he ran next to Jamaican phenom Yohan Blake.
But the relay was still to come. As the co-captain of the Canadian track team and the veteran of the relay squad, Connaughton ran the third leg.
He was chosen for that particular leg because of his ability to run the bend on the track better than almost anyone else. And he did just that.
Then it all went wrong.
Just before he handed the baton off to anchor Justyn Warner, Connaughton unwittingly stepped on the inside lane line, while still on the curve.
The race ended and Canada went up on the scoreboard as bronze medalists.
It was bedlam. The four men had done something no Canadians had accomplished since Bailey led the relay team to gold in Atlanta. They wrapped themselves in the flag.
Then it was all taken away. The results had been put up before they were official.
Now the dreaded letters "DQ" flashed next to Canada. Disqualified.
All because of one misstep.
They were the third-fastest team in the world, but there was no medal. There was only heartbreak and, in Connaughton's case, guilt.
And in that moment, and the moments to come, Canada learned more about Jared Connaughton and about itself than from anything he did on the track.
In handling a devastating blow with courage and humility, Jared showed the country what it is capable of in times of individual distress.
Reading the messages to Jared on Twitter was quite an experience in itself. A lot of Canadians have a vulture mentality when it comes to medals at the Olympics, and with the blame for losing a medal pinned squarely on one person, it could have been ugly. There could have been a lot of abuse heaped on the poor guy. It could have been Paul McCallum.
But it wasn't.
Time after time after time, people applauded Connaughton for the way he dealt with the situation, told him he was a hero, told him they were proud of the relay team and what they had accomplished, medal or no medal.
There were even people suggesting Connaughton should carry the flag for Canada at the closing ceremony.
(There's no question Christine Sinclair was the right choice for that one, though. When you lead your team to one of the greatest moments in your country's history in your sport, carrying the flag is just the start of things you deserve to do.)
I'm not usually much for over-the-top patriotism, but I doubt many other countries could turn a man who had cost his team a medal into a hero before the night was through.
When the next Summer Games come around in Rio in 2016, Connaughton will be 31.
Now he has to decide whether he's willing to commit to a third go-round at the Olympics.
I think he will.
I think he's too driven as a person to allow this to be the end of his Olympic career.
I think he wants his legacy to be something other than stepping on a lane line.
I think he's willing to be the mentor, the grizzled veteran who uses this experience to help up-and-coming athletes.
The odds of him ever winning an individual medal are slim. He's just not at the calibre of runners like Blake, Usain Bolt, Wallace Spearmon and Churandy Martina.
But there's room for improvement. Had Connaughton flirted with his personal best of 20.30 seconds in the 200-metre semi, he would have advanced to the final.
And there's still the relay. In four years, the likes of Warner, Gavin Smellie and Seyi Smith will really be hitting their stride.
Sometimes people really do follow their darkest days with their finest hours. It doesn't just happen in the movies.
Josh Lewis can be reached by phone at 634-2654, by e-mail at sports@estevanmercury.ca or on Twitter at twitter.com/joshlewis306. Does anyone truly believe Cory Boyd was a big enough problem in the Toronto Argonauts' locker room to merit an outright release?
